Alice, who was or affected to be near-sighted, and carried a glass at her side, raised it to her eyes and inspected this champion of Mrs. Schuyler, saying, with a little laugh: “Really, I am glad to meet with one of Mrs. Schuyler’s acquaintances, and to hear so good an account of her. Pray, do you know her well?” Gertie understood her meaning, and answered, spiritedly: “I am not one of her acquaintances. I am nobody but Gertie Westbrooke, but I’ve seen her many times in the grounds at Oakwood, and when she came to her mother’s where we had lodgings, and I know she is good, and pretty, and a lady, and Mr. Godfrey likes her.” “Do you know Godfrey too? Your circle of friends must be quite extended,” was Alice’s next remark, to which Gertie did not reply. She was tying on her bonnet, and only gave a quick, angry glance at Miss Creighton as she started to walk away. “That’s a queer little thing,” Alice said, as I stood a moment with her. “Rather pretty, too, isn’t she, with those blue eyes and that bright hair. How she did flame up though in Mrs. Schuyler’s defence! Her account of the lady does not tally with Godfrey’s, but then I suppose it was the shawl and the nice things which caught her fancy. Did she say she was a lodger of Mrs. Schuyler’s mother? That is something quite new, and worse than the hired companion. Poor Jule and Emma. I really pity them, and they so proud and exclusive.” “Alice, Alice, come, we want you,” came floating across the lawn from Julia Schuyler, and with a quick little nod, such as she always gave me, Miss Creighton went back to her companions, leaving me to think of what Gertie had said about lodging with Mrs. Schuyler’s mother, and to feel, it may be, inly glad that the Schuylers were to be punished a little for their arrogance and pride. I did not know Edith then. CHAPTER XXIV. MRS. ROGERS GETS WORK. Gertie seemed from the first much interested in the young ladies at the Hill, but with the exception of the night when Alice came across the fields to speak to me, she had only seen them at a distance, while they, absorbed as they were in more important matters, had scarcely thought of the occupants of the cottage. Alice’s sewing, however, was peremptory, and as her own seamstress did not come back she resolved at last to call on Mrs. Rogers, and drove, with Emma, to the house, where they found Gertie sitting on the low piazza absorbed in a book and making a very striking picture, with her bright hair falling around her face and neck as her blue eyes looked up at the strangers. “Is your mother at home?” Alice asked; and the child replied: “She is not my mother, and she is out just now. Can I tell her anything from you?” “Oh,” Alice said, a little impatiently, “that is just my luck. I wanted so much to see her about some plain sewing. Did you say anything to her about it, child?”