but said, instead:

'Count me out. I don't like the game, and there are enough without me.'

Just then Jerry appeared at the gate, and he added quickly:

'Still, I don't wish to be ungracious; and now Jerrie has come, we can
have an eight hand.'

Hastening toward her, he met her as we have recorded, and claimed her
for his partner.

'Thank you, Tom,' Jerrie said, with a bright smile on her face, which
made the young man's heart beat fast with both pleasure and pain, as he
gave her the mallet and told her she was to play first.

Tom was making himself master of ceremonies, and Dick kept quiet and let
him, and watched Jerrie admiringly as she made the two arches, and the
third, and fourth, and then sent her ball out of harm's way. It was a
long and closely contested game, for all were skilful players, except
poor Ann Eliza, who was always behind and required a great deal of
attention from her partner especially when it came to croqueting a
ball. She did not know exactly what to do, and kept her foot so long
upon the ball that less amiable girls than Nina and Jerrie would have
said she did it on purpose, to show how small and pretty it looked in
her closely fitting French boot. But Jerrie's side beat, as it usually
did. She had become a 'rover' the second round, had rescued Tom from
many a difficulty, and taken Ann Eliza through four or five wickets,
besides doing good service to her other friends.

'I p-p-propose three ch-cheers for Jerrie,' Billy said, standing on his
tiptoes and nearly splitting his throat with his own hurrah.

After the game was over they repaired to the piazza, where the little
tables were laid for tea, and where Jerrie found herself _vis-a-vis_
with Marian Raymond, of whom she had thought she might stand a little in
awe, she had heard so much of her. But the mesmeric power which Jerrie
possessed drew the Kentucky girl to her at once, and they were soon in a
most animated conversation.

'You do not seem like a stranger to me,' Marian said, 'and I should
almost say I had seen you before, you are so like a picture in Germany.'

'Yes,' Jerrie answered, with a gasp, and a feeling such as she always
experienced when the spell was upon her and she saw things as in a
dream.

'Was it in a gallery?'

'Oh, no; it was in a house we rented in Wiesbaden. You know, perhaps,
that I was there at school for a long time. Then, when mamma came out,
and I was through school, we stayed there for months, it