If I'm not here, I want you to write me.
I'll always be in touch with you from now on.
You will have my address.
Just let me know, and I'll help you.
Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Jennie.
"You'll promise to do that now, will you?'
"Yes," she replied.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
"Jennie," he said at last, the spring-like quality of the night moving him to a burst of feeling, "I've about decided that I can't do without you.
Do you think you could make up your mind to live with me from now on?"
Jennie looked away, not clearly understanding his words as he meant them.
"I don't know," she said vaguely.
"Well, you think about it," he said pleasantly.
"I'm serious.
Would you be willing to marry me, and let me put you away in a seminary for a few years?"
"Go away to school?"
"Yes, after you marry me."
"I guess so," she replied.
Her mother came into her mind.
Maybe she could help the family.
He looked around at her, and tried to make out the expression on her face.
It was not dark.
The moon was now above the trees in the east, and already the vast host of stars were paling before it.
"Don't you care for me at all, Jennie?" he asked.
"Yes!"
"You never come for my laundry any more, though," he returned pathetically.
It touched her to hear him say this.
"I didn't do that," she answered.
"I couldn't help it; Mother thought it was best."
"So it was," he assented.
"Don't feel badly.
I was only joking with you.
You'd be glad to come if you could, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, I would," she answered frankly.
He took her hand and pressed it so feelingly that all his kindly words seemed doubly emphasized to her.
Reaching up impulsively, she put her arms about him.
"You're so good to me," she said with the loving tone of a daughter.
"You're my girl, Jennie," he said with deep feeling. "I'd do anything in the world for you."
CHAPTER VI
The father of this unfortunate family, William Gerhardt, was a man of considerable interest on his personal side.
Born in the kingdom of Saxony, he had had character enough to oppose the army conscription iniquity, and to flee, in his eighteenth year, to Paris.
From there he had set forth for America, the land of promise.
Arrived in this country, he had made his way, by slow stages, from New York to Philadelphia, and thence westward, working for a time in the various glass factories in Pennsylvania.
In one romantic village of this new world he had found his heart's ideal.
With her, a simple American girl of German extraction, he had removed to Youngstown, and thence to Columbus, each time following a glass manufacturer by the name of Hammond, whose business prospered and waned by turns.
Gerhardt was an honest man, and he liked to think that others appreciated his integrity.
"William," his employer used to say to him, "I want you because I can trust you," and this, to him, was more than silver and gold.
This honesty, like his religious convictions, was wholly due to inheritance.
He had never reasoned about it.