Gertie had been very sick, and her bright color was all gone, and her round cheeks looked thin and wan, when at last Mary dressed her in her warm wrapper, with its facings of pink, and then folding Edith’s shawl about her carried her on deck, and propping her up with pillows and cushions made her as comfortable as she could. Though pale and worn with marks of suffering on her face and in her soft blue eyes, Gertie was pretty still, and made a very attractive picture as she sat in her quiet corner with a book, whose pages she was turning listlessly, when she heard footsteps approaching her, and a voice exclaimed: “Hallo, Bob, by George, if there isn’t ‘_La Sœur_,’ looking like a little ghost; here, this way;” and Godfrey Schuyler, who was also better and able to be up, came quickly to her side, followed by Robert Macpherson, who moved more slowly and showed more signs of weakness than the active, restless Godfrey. Robert Macpherson had seen and talked with Gertie at her lodgings near Oakwood, and had asked her to sit for her picture, and she had said she would, and a day had been appointed for the sitting, when Mary Rogers interfered and refused _in toto_, and kept her child so close that neither Robert nor Godfrey saw her again except in her aunt’s company or through the window of her room. Godfrey, indeed, had only spoken to her once, and that when she sat in the door eating blackberries, her lips and pretty fingers stained with the juice, and her bright hair falling about her face. Mrs. Rogers had come upon him then just as he was going to make some flattering speech, and called her little girl away, and he had not seen her since until now, when he esteemed it a great piece of luck to stumble thus upon her with the dragon out of sight. Gertie knew him, and a pleased smile broke over her face and shone in her eyes, when he stopped before her and asked if she had been sick and how she liked the feeling of it. She did not like it at all, and she and Godfrey grew very social and sympathetic as they compared notes, he going far ahead of her, of course, inasmuch as he did not hesitate to draw upon his imagination when necessary, while she adhered strictly to the truth, saying only that she felt at times as if she were standing on her head, while he averred that he did stand on his head until he was black in the face. She did not believe him, but she laughed merrily at his droll sayings, and then acquaintance was progressing rapidly when he asked what she was reading, and stooped down beside her to see the title-page.