Where was she now? Dead, perhaps, and gone to the lover lost so early; or it might be that she was married and had forgotten that far-off grave, which she had bidden me keep till she came back again. I had neglected it of late, but my work was taken from my hands by little Gertie Westbrooke, who had made a miniature garden of the spot, and brought to light and life the flowers I had put there in the summers past and gone. There were clumps of white daisies and blue forget-me-nots, and the sweet English violet, with other hardy roots which bear our northern winters, while the rose brought from Vine Cottage yard had wound itself round the tall monument, and was reaching out its arms toward the evergreen which grew near by. There were some violets in blossom now, while, better than all, there was a clump of buds upon the rose tree, the summer’s second growth, and Gertie plucked two of them, and gathered some white daisies and blue forget-me-nots, and sitting down upon the grass she made them into a tiny bouquet, with sweet-brier for a background of green, and told me she was going to carry them home and keep them in her room. I had shown her the little vase which Heloise Fordham left with me, and she had filled it with flowers that afternoon and brought it to the grave, where, just under the shadow of the rose, it stood a sweet offering to the memory of the dead, who, far away in the other world, knew, perhaps, whose feet were treading the sod above him, and whose the little hands so busy with his grave. How pretty my darling was that afternoon, with the flush on her face and the sparkle in her eyes, as, with the bouquet in her hands, she walked with me back to the cottage, where I was going to help her a little in her French; and how gayly she chattered, sometimes about herself and what she meant to be, and then of the young ladies from the Hill who had called at the cottage the day before. “I don’t think Miss Creighton very pretty,” she said, “though she looks just like the pictures in the fashion books. Miss Emma is handsomer than she, but neither are half as handsome as Mrs. Schuyler.” “I believe you think Mrs. Schuyler very pretty,” I said, and she replied: “Pretty, I guess she is! She is beautiful,—just like a grand duchess.” “How old is she?” I asked. “Oh, I don’t know. How old are you, Miss Armstrong?” I told her almost twenty-seven, and she exclaimed: “That is very old! I don’t think Mrs. Schuyler can be half as old as that. She looks just like a girl. Oh! oh! oh! there she is! There she is! Look, look, Miss Armstrong, they come! they come!”