blue-eyed girl who seated herself beside him, and, nestling close to
him, laid her curly head upon his arm.

'I've come to help you rake the hay,' she said, 'for grandma told me you
had a headache at noon, and couldn't eat your huckleberry pie. I am
awfully sorry, Harold, but I ate it myself, it looked so good, instead
of saving it for your supper. It was nasty and mean in me, and I hope it
will make me sick.'

But Harold told her he did not care for the pie, and would rather that
she would eat it if she liked it. Then he questioned her of the park
house and of Arthur; asking if the bees were often in his head now, or
had she driven them out.

'No, I guess I haven't. They were awful yesterday and to-day,' Jerry
replied. 'He was talking of Gretchen all the time. I wonder who she was.
Sometimes I look at her until it seems to me I have seen her or
something like her, a paler face with sadder eyes. How he must have
loved her, better than you or I could ever love anybody; don't you think
so?'

Harold hesitated a moment, and then replied:

'I don't know, but it seems to me I love you as much as a man could ever
love another.'

'Phoo! Of course you do; but that's boy love; that isn't like when you
are old enough to have a beau!' and Jerry laughed merrily, as she sprang
up, and, taking Harold's rake, began to toss the hay about rapidly,
bidding him sit still and see how fast she could work in his place.

Harold was very tired, and his head was aching badly, so for a time he
sat still, watching the graceful movements of the beautiful child, who,
it seemed to him, was slipping away from him. Constant intercourse with
a polished man like Arthur Tracy had not been without its effect upon
her, and there was about her an air which with strangers would have
placed her at once above the ordinary level of simple country girls.
This Harold had been the first to detect, and though he rejoiced at
Jerry's good fortune, there was always with him a dread lest she should
grow beyond him, and that he should lose the girl he loved so much.

'What if she should think me a clown and a clodhopper, as Tom Tracy
does?' he said to himself, as he watched her raking up the hay faster,
and quite as well as he could have done himself. 'I believe I should
want to die.'

It was impossible that Jerry should have guessed the nature of Harold's
thoughts, but once, as she passed near him, she dropped her rake, and
going up to him, wiped his forehea