Tracy Park eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 686 pages of information about Tracy Park.

Tracy Park eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 686 pages of information about Tracy Park.
it seemed to him was the name—­who sold his soul to the devil in consideration that for a certain number of years he was to have every pleasure the world could give.  It had been very pleasant listening to the recital of the fine things the man enjoyed, for Satan kept his promise well; but the boy’s hair had stood on end as the story neared its close, and he heard how, when the probation was ended, the devil came for his victim down the wide-mouthed chimney, scattering bricks and fire-brands over the floor, as he carried the trembling soul out in the blackness of the stormy night.

Strangely enough this story came back to him now, and notwithstanding the horror of the thing he laughed aloud as he glanced up at the tall oak fire-place, wondering if it would be that way he would one day go with his master, and seeing in fancy Dolly’s dismay when the tea-cups, and saucers, and vases, and plaques, came tumbling to the floor as he disappeared from sight in a blue flame, which smelled of brimstone.

It was a loud, unnatural laugh, but fortunately for him it came just as Grace Atherton had set the guests in a roar with what she was saying of the Peterkin’s final struggle to enter society, and so it passed unnoticed by most of them.  But that night in the privacy of his room, where Dolly delivered most of her lectures, she again upbraided him with his taciturnity, telling him that he never laughed but once, and then it sounded more like a groan than a laugh.

‘You have hit the nail on the head this time, for it was a groan,’ Frank said, as he plunged into bed; and Dolly, as she undressed herself deliberately, and this time put her diamonds carefully away, little dreamed what was passing in the mind of the man, who, all through the long hours of the night, lay awake, seldom stirring lest he should disturb her, but repeating over and over to himself, the words: 

‘Lost now forever and ever, but if Maude is happy I can bear it.’

CHAPTER XXIV.

JERRIE—­NINE YEARS LATER.

She spelled her name with an ie now, instead of a y. She was nineteen years old; she had been a student at Vassar for four years, together with Nina St. Claire and Ann Eliza Peterkin, and in July was to be graduated with the highest honors of her class.  In her childhood, when we knew her as little Jerry, she had been very small, but at the age of twelve she suddenly shot up like an arrow, and had you first seen her, with her back to you, you might have said she was very tall, but had you waited till she turned her face toward you, or walked across the floor, you would have thought that if an eighth of an inch were taken from her height it would spoil her splendidly developed form.  Her school companions called her the Princess, she was so tall and straight, and graceful in every movement, with that sweet graciousness of manner which won all hearts to her and made her

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Tracy Park from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.