Jim said nothing. He was not good at words, but he waited till Tom had recovered himself, and then he went right to his home with him and made a cup of tea for him and sat and chatted till past midnight. "Don't be downhearted, old fellow," he said when he parted from him. But as he went home again he muttered to himself and frowned. "I wonder what Jane means to do? I wonder what she _could_ do?" CHAPTER XVI. LINKS IN A CHAIN. Gertrude had never had such a summer of gaieties. She had not long returned from Whitecliff when a young American, cousin to Pauline Stacey, with a long purse and unlimited ideas of enjoying himself, made his appearance in Old Keston. He had "done" England, and wished to stay with his Aunt Stacey "for a few days" before going on to Switzerland, and with his cousin Pauline's very ready help, he inaugurated a series of boating excursions, moonlight strolls, tennis matches and picnics, which lengthened his visit into weeks instead of days, and in which Gertrude, to her great delight, found herself involved from the very first. Pauline Stacey had long ago found Gertrude a far more congenial spirit than her first friend, Denys, had ever been, so that though Denys was occasionally invited to the American's festivities, it generally fell out that Gertrude and Willie or Gertrude and Conway, but always Gertrude, helped to make up the large parties, without which the American could not be satisfied and which stirred up and drew together the social side of Old Keston in an unprecedented manner. The weather was glorious, and Gertrude spent every halfpenny she could scrape together on white frocks, and though she professed to hate needlework, she suddenly became extremely industrious and worked early and late, turning out dainty blouses which far outshone Denys's creations and astounded her family. On Saturday mornings she gave up all her usual avocations, denied herself to the general public, and devoted her energies to the wash-tub and the ironing board, the result of which operations she proudly displayed in a pile of muslins which would have done credit to an experienced laundry-maid. "People think I can't do things," she said complacently to her mother, "Denys is not the only one who can get up frocks and make blouses." "Very likely not," muttered Conway, who overheard the remark, "you only do them when it is for yourself. Denys does them every day for everybody else." Gertrude carefully laid by her freshly got up stock of elegancies, and stretched her tired back on the bed which they had occupied, hoping to get half an hour's sleep before she dressed for a picnic. "Money would have sent all those horrid frills to the laundry and saved me a backache," she said to herself, "frills are bad enough to make, but they are infinitely worse to iron. Of course I want money to do things with! I don't want to be poor all my life." Then she smiled as she closed her eyes and composed herself to sleep.