When Gyp heard the rattle of tea-cups below, they all tore downstairs again, Pepper at their heels. They gathered around Uncle Johnny and drank iced tea and ate little frosted cakes and demanded to be told how he had felt when he knew he was lost on that "big mountain." They were all so nice and jolly, Jerry thought, and, though Isobel ignored her, she must be as nice as the others, because Uncle Johnny kept her next to him and held her hand. The late afternoon sun slanted through the long windows with a pleasant glow; the rows and rows of books on the open shelves made Jerry feel at home; the great, deep-seated chairs gave her a delicious sense of refuge.

It was Uncle Johnny who, after dinner, sent Jerry off to bed early; though she declared she was not one little bit tired, he had noticed that the brightness had gone from her face. Gyp and Tibby went upstairs with her; Graham disappeared with Pepperpot.

"What do you think of my girl?" John Westley asked his sister-in-law.

They had gone back to the library. Isobel sat on a stool close to Uncle Johnny's chair.

"She seems like an unusually nice, jolly child. But----" Mrs. Westley looked a little distressed. "May she not be homesick here, John--so far from her folks?" She hated to think of such a possibility.

"I thought of that," John Westley chuckled. "I said something about it to her. What do you think she said? She waited a moment before she answered me--as though she was carefully considering it. 'Well,' she said, 'anyway, one wouldn't be homesick for very long, would one?' As though it'd be like measles--or mumps. This is an Adventure to her; she's been dreaming about it all her life!" He told, then, about the Wishing-rock.

"I tell you, Mary, there's some sort of spirit about the girl that's unusual! It must come from some fire of genius further back than her hermit-parents. I'm as certain as anything that there's a mystery about the child. I've knocked about among all sorts of people, but I never found such a curious family before--in such a place. Dr. Travis is one of those mortals whose feet touch the earth and whose head is in the clouds; Mrs. Travis is a cultured, beautiful woman with a look in her eyes as though she was always afraid of something--just behind. And then Jerry--like them both and not a bit like 'em--her head in the clouds, all right--a girl who sees beauty and a promise and a vision in everything--a girl of dreams! You can imagine almost any sort of a story about her."

As Mrs. Allan had done, Mrs. Westley laughed at her brother-in-law's enthusiasm.

"She's probably just a healthy girl who has been brought up in a simple way by very sensible parents." Her matter-of-fact tone made John Westley feel a little foolish. "She's a dear, sunny child and I hope she will be happy here."

"What got me was her utter lack of self-consciousness and her faith in herself. Not an affectation about her--that's why I wanted her at Lincoln school."

"No one'll _look_ at her there--she's so dowdy!" burst out Isobel.

Her uncle turned quickly, surprised and a little hurt at the pettishness of her tone.

"Isobel, dear--" protested her mother.

Then Uncle Johnny laughed. "I rather guess, from my observation of the vagaries of you young people, that sometimes one little thing can make even a 'dowdy' girl popular--then, if she has the right stuff in her, she can be a leader. What is it starts you all wearing these little black belts round your waists, or this mousetrap," poking the puffs of pretty silk hair that hid her ears; "it's a psychology that's beyond most of us! Maybe my Jerry will set a new style in Lincoln."

Isobel blazed in her scorn.

"Well, I'd _die_ before _I'd_ look like her!" she cried. "I'm going to bed." She felt very cross. She had wanted Uncle Johnny to tell her that she looked well; she had on a new dress and her hair was combed in a very new way; she had grown, too, in the summer. Instead he had talked of nothing but Jerry, Jerry--and such silly talk about her eyes shining as though they reflected golden visions within! She stalked away with a bare good-night.

Uncle Johnny might have said something if Isobel's mother had not given a long sigh.

"I can't--always--understand Isobel now," she said. "She has grown so self-centered. I'll be glad when school begins." Mrs. Westley, like many another perplexed parent, looked upon school as a cure for all evils.

Jerry and Gyp had been busily unpacking Jerry's belongings and putting them away in the little white bureau.

"Where's Pepper?" asked Jerry, in sudden alarm. The children had been warned to keep the little dog from "under Mrs. Hicks' feet." In a flash Jerry had a horrible vision of some cruel fate befalling her pet.

"I'll just bet Graham has him," declared Gyp, indignantly.

They tiptoed down the hall and up the stairs to Graham's door. Graham lay in bed, sound asleep; beside him lay Pepper, carefully tucked under the bedclothes. One of Graham's arms was flung out over the dog.

Some instinct told Jerry that a long-felt yearning in this boy's heart had at last been satisfied. And Pepper must have felt it, too, for, though at the sight of his little mistress a distressed quiver shot through him, he bravely pretended to be soundly sleeping.

"Let him have him," whispered Jerry.

But, for a long time, Jerry, under the pink and white cover, blinked at the little circle of brightness reflected from the electric light outside, trying hard not to wish she had Pepperpot with her "to keep away the lonesomes." The night sounds of the city hummed in eerie cadences in her ears. She resolutely counted one-two-three to one hundred and back again to one to keep the thoughts of mother and Sunnyside out of her head; then, just as she felt a great choking sob rise in her throat, she heard a little scratch-scratch at her door.

"Oh, _Pepper_--I'm so _glad_ you came!" She caught the shaggy little form to her. She could not let him lie on the pink-and-whiteness, so she carefully spread it over the footboard and folded her own coat for him to sleep on.

How magically everything changed--when a shaggy terrier snuggled against her feet. The haunting shadows fled, the sob gave way to a contented little sigh and Jerry fell asleep with the memory of Gyp's dark, roguish face in her thoughts and a consuming eagerness to have the morning come quickly.

CHAPTER VII

HIGHACRES

Old Peter Westley had made up his mind, so gossip said, to build Highacres when he heard that Thomas Knowles, a business rival, had bought a palatial home on the most beautiful avenue of the city.

"Pouf"--that was Uncle Peter's favorite expression and he had a way of blowing it through his scraggly mustache that made it most impressive.

"Pouf! _I'll_ show him!" The next morning he drove around to a real estate office, bundled the startled real estate broker into his car and carried him off to the outskirts of the city, where lay a beautiful tract of land advertised as "Highacre Terrace," and held (with an eye to the growth of the city) at a startling figure. In the real estate office it had been divided into building lots with "restrictions," which meant that only separate houses could be built on the lots. Peter Westley struck the ground with his heavy cane and said he'd take the whole piece. The real estate man gasped. Uncle Peter said "pouf" again and the deal was settled.

Then he summoned architects from all over the country who, to his delight, spent hours in the office of the Westley Cement-Mixer Manufacturing Company trying to outdo one another in finesse and suavity. Fortunately he decided upon a man who had genius as well as tact, who, without his knowing it, could quietly bend old Peter Westley to his way of thinking. Under this man's planning the new home grew until it stood in its finished perfection, a mass of stone and marble surrounded by great trees and sloping lawns. Gossip said further that Highacres so far surpassed the remodeled home of Thomas Knowles that that poor gentleman had resigned from the Meadow Brook Country Club so that he would not have to drive past it!

What sentiment had led Peter Westley to leave Highacres to the Lincoln School no one would ever know; perhaps deep in his queer old heart was an affection for his nephew Robert's children, who came dutifully to see him once or twice a year, but made no effort to conceal the fact that they thought it a dreadful bore.

"I think," Isobel said seriously to her family, as they were gathered around the breakfast table, a few days after Jerry's arrival, "that it'd be nice if Gyp and I put on black----"

"_Black_----" cried Gyp, spilling her cocoa in her astonishment.

"Yes, black. We should have worn it when Uncle Peter died and now, going to school out there, it would show the others that we respected----"

Mrs. Westley laughed, then when she saw the color deepen on Isobel's cheeks she added soothingly: "Your thought's all right, Isobel dear, but it will be hardly necessary for you and Gyp to put on black now to show your respect. I think every pupil of Lincoln can best do it by building up a reputation for scholarship that will make Lincoln known all over the country."

"Isobel just wants everybody to remember she's Uncle Peter's----"

"Hush, Graham." Mrs. Westley had a way of saying "hush" that cleared a threatening atmosphere at once.

"Oh, isn't it going to be _fun_?" cried Gyp. "Mother, can't we take Jerry out there this morning?"

"But I have to use the car----"

"If you girls were fellows, we could walk," broke in Graham.

"We can--we can! It's only two miles and a half. Simpson watched on the speedometer the last time we drove out."

Graham looked questioningly at Jerry and Jerry, suddenly recalling the miles of mountain trail over which she had climbed, laughed back her answer.

Because a new world, that surpassed any fairy tale, had opened to Jerry in these last few days, it seemed only fitting to go to school in a building that was like a palace. She thrilled at the thought of the new school life, the girls and boys who would be her classmates, the new teachers, the new studies. For years and years, back at the Notch she had always sat in front of Rose Smith and back of Jimmy Chubb; she had progressed from fractions to measurements and then on to algebra and from spelling to Latin with the outline of Jimmy's winglike ears so fixed a part of her vision that she wondered if now she might not find that she could not study without them. And there had always been, as far back as she could remember, only little Miss Masten to teach multiplication and geography and algebra alike; she and the other children who made up the "advanced grade" of the school at Miller's Notch always called her "Miss Sarah." Would there be anyone like Miss Sarah at Lincoln?

As they walked along, Gyp bravely measuring her step to Jerry's freer stride, Gyp explained to Jerry "all about" Uncle Peter.

"He's father's uncle. Father's father--that's my grandfather--was his youngest brother. He died when he was just a young man and Uncle Peter never got over it. Mother says my grandfather was the only person Uncle Peter ever really liked. He always lived in the same funny little old house even after he made lots of money, until he built Highacres. He was terribly queer. I used to be dreadfully afraid of him because he always carried a big cane and had the awfullest way of looking at you! His eyes sort of bored holes right through you, so that you turned cold all over and couldn't even cry. I'm glad he's dead. He was awfully old, anyway--or at least he looked old. We used to just hate to have to go to see him. The old stingy wouldn't ever even give us a stick of candy."

"The poor old man," Jerry said so feelingly that Gyp stared at her. "My mother always said that such people are so unhappy that they punish themselves. Maybe he really wanted to be nice and just didn't know how!

Anyway, he's given his home to the school."