y, and growing
prettier every day. But Arthur did not seem at all interested and only
said:

'How can Mrs. Crawford afford to keep the child?'

Others than Arthur asked that question, and among them Dolly, who with a
woman's quick wit, sharpened by something she accidentally saw, divined
the truth, which she wrung at last from her husband. There was a fierce
quarrel--almost their first--a sick headache which lasted three days,
and a month or more of coldness between the married pair, and then,
finding she could accomplish nothing, for Frank was as firm as a rock,
Dolly gave up the contest, and tried by economizing in various ways, to
save the money which she felt was taken from her children by the little
girl, who had become so dear to Mrs. Crawford, that she would not have
parted with her had nothing been paid for her keeping.

CHAPTER XVII.

"MR. CRAZYMAN, DO YOU WANT SOME CHERRIES?"

More than two years had passed away since the terrible March night when
the strange woman was frozen to death in the Tramp House, and her
history was still shrouded in mystery. Not a word had been heard
concerning her, and her story was gradually being forgotten by the
people of Shannondale. Her grave, however, was tolerably well kept, and
every Saturday afternoon, in summer time, a few flowers were put upon it
by Harold. Not so much for the sake of the dead as for the beautiful
child who always accompanied him, laughing, and frolicking, and
sometimes dancing around the grave where he told her her mother was
buried.

As there had been no date on which to fix Jerry's birth, they had called
the first day of March her birthday, so that when more than two years
later we introduce her to our readers on a hot July morning, she was
said to be six years and four months old. In some respects, however, she
seemed much older, for there was about her a precocity only found in
children who have always associated with people much older than
themselves, or into whose lives strange experiences have come. In
stature she was very short, though round and plump as a partridge.
'Dutchy,' Mr. Tracy called her, for Mrs. Tracy did not like her, and
took no pains to conceal her dislike, though it was based upon nothing
except the money which she knew was paid regularly to Mrs. Crawford for
the child's maintenance.

There could be no reason, she said to her husband, why he should support
the child of a tramp, and the woman had been little better,