hers always dream way ahead, darling.
But as you grew older I could see that that was not going to be easy.
You've so quickly outgrown everything I can give you--or that
anyone--here--can; you have grown so curious, your mind is always
reaching out. What is here, what is there, what is this, where is
that--questions like these always on your tongue! And you _are_ like
your father--very."

Jerry shivered the least little bit, perhaps from the night air, warm as
it was, perhaps from the thought that she was like poor, poor Craig
Winton, who did not seem at all like a real father.

In a moment her mother had wrapped her in the soft shawl she carried.
Something in the loving touch of her hands broke the spell of unreality
that had held Jerry.

"I don't understand, mamsey," she whispered, cuddling close, "if you
felt like--_that_--and worried, why did you let me go away?"

"Because, my child," there was something triumphant in her mother's
voice, "some inner sense made me believe that though you look like your
father and act like him in many ways, you have a nature and a character
quite of your own. I tried to put away the fears I had had which I told
myself were foolish and morbid. John Westley's arguments helped me. I
knew immediately that he was related to the Peter Westley who had
crushed your father, but I felt certain he knew nothing of it--and I was
glad; to bury the past entirely was the only way to bury forever the
bitterness that had killed your father. And when John Westley made the
offer to give you a year of school, I thought it was only justice! I had
known school life in a big city where I had many schoolmates and I lived
for several years in the shadow of a great university, though the life
in it only touched me indirectly, and when the opportunity opened, I
wanted you to have the same experience; I felt it might solve the
problem that confronted me. And I told myself that I was _sure_ of you
that you could go away to school, go anywhere, and come back again and
be my same girl! Jerry, these people have been very, very good to you;
out of pure generosity they have given you a great deal, do you now--now
that you know the truth--feel any bitterness toward them?"

Never had Jerry associated Uncle Johnny and Mrs. Westley, nor the
younger Westleys, nor the charming, hospitable home, with the Peter
Westley she had pictured from Gyp's vivid descriptions. And, too,
remembering the pathetic loneliness of the old