ottom dollar.
We all wondered how he could afford it. I hope you like it.'

She was too angry to tell him whether she liked it or not, for she knew
the speech was a mean one and prompted by a mean spirit, and she kept on
rubbing a towel until there was danger of its being rubbed into shreds.
Then suddenly remembering that Tom had not told her of Maude, she
repeated her question. 'How is Maude? She was coming to see me this
morning I hope I shall be done before she gets here.'

'Don't hurry yourself for Maude,' Tom replied. 'She will not be here
to-day. I had nearly forgotten that she sent her love and wants you to
come there. She is sick in bed, or was when I left. She had a slight
hemorrhage last night. I think it was from her stomach, though, and so
does mother, but father is scared to death, as he always is if Maude has
a pain in her little finger.'

'Oh, Tom,' Jerrie said, recalling with a pang the thin face, the
blue-veined hands, the tired look of the young girl at the station. 'Oh,
Tom, why didn't you tell me before, so I could hurry and go to her;' and
leaning over her tub Jerrie began to cry, while Tom looked curiously at
her, wondering if she really cared so much for his sister.

'Don't cry, Jerrie,' he said, at last, very tenderly for him. 'Maude is
not so bad; the doctor has no fear. She is only tired with all she has
done lately. You know, perhaps, that she was here constantly with
Harold, and I believe she actually painted for him some, and for aught I
know helped shingle the roof, as Billy said.'

'Yes, I know; I understand,' Jerrie replied, 'I saw it in her face
yesterday. She has tired herself out for me, and if she dies I shall
hate the room forever.'

'But she will not die; that is nonsense,' Tom began when he was
interrupted by Mrs. Crawford, who called out:

'Oh, Jerry, here is Billy Peterkin, with his hands full. What shall I do
with him?'

Dashing away her tears, Jerry replied:

'Send him in here, of course.'

In a few moments the dapper little man was in the woodshed, with a large
bouquet of hot-house flowers in one hand and a basket of delicious
black-caps in the other. For a moment he stood staring first at Tom on
the wooden chair glaring savagely at him, and at Jerrie by the washtub
with the traces of tears on her face--then, with a wind of forced laugh,
he said:

'Be-beg pardon, if I in-tr-trude. Looks dusedly like l-love in a
t-t-tub.'

'And if it is, you have knocked the bot