Gertie’s reply puzzled me, for I knew that the Schuyler Hill ladies were expecting something dreadful in the bride and were preparing themselves accordingly, while Gertie’s story seemed to contradict the entire thing. But all I had to do was to wait and see for myself, so I asked no more questions, and as the afternoon was drawing to a close, we left the cemetery and took a path homeward, which led near to the great house on the hill. The ladies were playing croquet on the lawn, and Gertie pulled my dress and whispered: “See, there they are, four ladies; which are the sisters, and who are the others?” I pointed out Julia and Emma Schuyler, and told her the lady in the black dress and scarlet shawl was Miss Rossiter, Godfrey’s aunt, and that the light-haired girl, with her hair put up so high, was Miss Alice Creighton from New York, who spent a great deal of time at Schuyler Hill, as the colonel was her guardian. “Oh, how I like to play croquet! Why, if I can only get a ball, I can go clear round the ground the first time. Do you think they would ask us to join them if we went nearer?” she said; and I replied that I hardly thought they would care to give up that game for the sake of taking us in, while to myself I wondered at her temerity in proposing such a thing. I did not know her then as well as I did afterward, for though she could tell Godfrey Schuyler that he must not talk to her because she was poor, in her heart she was a born aristocrat, and felt no distinction except the accident of wealth between herself and people like the Schuylers. She never forgot that her mother was a lady, and though she had but forty pounds a year and her auntie was a seamstress, she felt no inferiority to any one, and expected kindness and attention from all. It was a little singular that of the four ladies in the lawn she should have singled out Alice Creighton as the subject for remark, and not very complimentary remarks either. “Why does she wear her hair so high?” she asked, and when I explained that it was the fashion, she answered: “But it is very ugly, and makes her look so queer. Will Mr. Godfrey like that? He said mine was pretty in my neck;” and taking off her white cape sun-bonnet she let her bright, wavy hair fall in masses around her face and down her back. “You are a little girl,” I said, “and Miss Creighton is seventeen, and engaged, I guess.” “Engaged!” she repeated. “That’s funny, and she so young. Is it Mr. Godfrey?” I was stooping to button my boot, and did not answer her, while she forgot to put the question again, and clutching my arm, said in a whisper: “Look, she is coming here; this way; right toward us.” “Good-evening, Miss Armstrong,” Alice said. “I saw you standing here, and got our governess to take my place, while I came to ask if you know of any one who can do fluting nicely, and plain sewing as well. Adams is sick just when I need her most, and I thought you might know of some one.”