s, his limbs shook,
and his heart beat faster than its wont, as he went toward his
sleeping-apartment, from which the voice came again a little louder and
more peremptory:
'Mr. Crazyman! where are you? I've brought you some cherries!'
He had reached the door by this time, and saw the pail on the broad
window-ledge where Jerry had put it, and to which she was clinging, with
her white sun-bonnet just in view.
'Oh, Gretchen! how did you get here?' he said, bounding across the
floor, with no thought of Jerry in his mind, no thought of any one but
Gretchen, whom he was constantly expecting to come, though not exactly
in this way.
'I climbed the ladder to fetch you some cherries, and I'm standing on
the toppest stick,' Jerry said, craning her neck until her bonnet fell
back, disclosing to view her beautiful face flushed with excitement, and
her bright, wavy hair, which, moist with perspiration, clung in masses
of round curls to her head and forehead.
'Great Heaven!' Arthur exclaimed, as he stood staring at the wide-open
blue eyes confronting him so steadily. 'Who are you, and where did you
come from?'
'I'm Jerry, and I comed from the carpet-bag in the Tramp House. Take me
in, won't you?' Jerry said; and, mechanically leaning from the window,
Arthur took her in, while Harold from below looked on, horror-struck
with fear as to what the result might be if Jerry were left any time
alone with a madman who did not like children.
'He may kill her; I must tell the folks,' he said; and, going round to
the side door, he entered, without knocking, and asked for Mrs. Tracy.
But she was not at home, and so he told the servants of Jerry's danger,
and begged them to go to her rescue.
'Pshaw, he won't hurt her. Charles will come pretty soon, and I'll send
him up. Don't look so scared; he is harmless,' the cook said to Harold,
who, in a wild state of nervous fear, went back to the cherry trees,
where he could listen and hear the first scream which should proclaim
Jerry's danger.
But none came, and could he have looked into the room, where Jerry sat,
or rather stood, he would have been amazed.
As Arthur lifted Jerry through the window, and put her down upon the
floor, he said to her:
'Take off that bonnet and let me look at you.'
She obeyed and stood before him with all her wealth of hair tumbling
about her glowing face, and an eager, questioning expression in her blue
eyes, which looked at him so fearlessly. Arth
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