e of interest in living, unconsciously
postponing for herself the future's need for the solace of love. The
small income from her lease to the Macpherson Mortgage Company filled
her purse temporarily, and she began at once upon a course of economic
estimates worthy of Jim Swaim's child, however seemingly impossible in
Lesa Swaim's pretty, dueless daughter. Another trait, undeveloped
heretofore, began to be emphasized--namely, that while she could chatter
glibly on embroideries and styles, and prettily on art, and seriously
and intelligently on affairs of national interest, as any all-round
American girl should do--she was discreet and uncommunicative regarding
her business affairs. Not that she meant to be secretive; she was simply
following the inherited business ability of an upright, well-balanced
man, her father. Coupled with this was a pride in her determination to
win--to prove to Aunt Jerry Darby and Eugene Wellington that she had
made no mistake; and until victory was hers she would be silent about
her endeavors.

The Macphersons had insisted that Jerry should remain their guest at
least until the opening of the school in September. And if the girl
imagined that she found a faint hint of fervor gone from Laura
Macpherson's urging, her hostess made up for it in the abundant kindness
of little acts of hospitality. Jerry was frankly troubled, and yet she
could not say why, for it was all the impressions of a mind sensitized
to comprehend unspoken things. Jerry's memory would call up that
incident of the lost purse found in her hand-bag, and of Laura's excuse
for it, which she, Jerry, knew was impossible. And yet the girl felt
that it was a contemptible thing to impute a distrust to Laura that,
placed in the same position, she herself would scorn to harbor.

"I see no way but the everlasting run of events. I wish they would run
fast and clear it up," Jerry said to herself, dismissing the matter
entirely, only to have it bobbing up for consideration again on the
first occasion.

At the close of a hot summer day Jerry was in her room, finishing a
letter to Jerusha Darby, to whom she wrote faithfully, but from whom she
had rarely received a line. York and Laura were on the porch, as usual.
The hammock that day had been swung to a shadier position, on account of
the slipping southward of the late summer sun; and Laura forgot that
Jerry's window opened almost against it now, so that she could hear all
that was said at