“Oh, bother, Allie, it isn’t that. I heard just as much slang, and saw just as many clowns, and snobs, and fools abroad as I ever saw here; and more too. Travel didn’t improve my mind or manners; it was a little girl. Oh! don’t look so disturbed,” he added, as Alice bridled at the mention of a girl. “You needn’t be jealous at all. She isn’t bigger than my thumb, and is only twelve years old. She was on the ship with us and awful sick, and so was I. I tell you what, I have been down to the very depths and felt deep calling unto deep in a way I never wish to hear it call again. Ugh! the very thought of that cold creep which begins at the toes and ends in the spittoon makes me dizzy; and with a swaying motion Godfrey rocked from side to side until his head rested on Alice’s shoulder. But she moved away from him with dignified propriety, saying: “Yes, I know, I have been sea-sick too; it is dreadful; but what of the little girl, and who was she?” “Oh, yes, I was telling you about her. She had been sick, and was sitting on deck, all wrapped up in shawls and blankets, and looking so like some pure white pond lily, that I kissed her right on the mouth!” “Godfrey!” Alice exclaimed, indignantly; while he rejoined: “You are not half as angry as she was. I never saw anything like the gleam in her blue eyes. Had I really insulted her she could not have taken it worse than she did, or reproached me more sharply. I never heard anything like the way she talked to me. Why, I felt as ashamed as a dog, and when she attacked my slang, as she called my free style of talk, I promised her I would break myself of it and try to come up to her idea of a gentleman.” “_Her_ idea,” Alice said. “Who was she, pray, that she should presume to lecture you?” “I tell you, there’s no need to be jealous,” Godfrey replied. “Not of her, at least. She is only a child,—not in ‘our set,’—no pretension,—no family,—though I believe she does boast a grandmother and forty pounds a year.” “Oh, I know,—Gertie Rogers, that yellow-haired girl down at the cottage!” Alice exclaimed, with a tone of irritation in her voice. “And so you have seen Gertie. Isn’t she a beauty?” Godfrey said. Before Alice could reply there was the rustle of a dress and the sound of voices and footsteps on the stairs. The colonel and Edith were coming down, and they went into the drawing-room, where Godfrey and Alice joined them, the latter scanning the bride curiously, and mentally acknowledging her to be the most elegant woman she had ever seen, both in face, and manner, and dress. How exquisitely beautiful Edith was in the grayish silk, with the pink tinge, which fitted her fine form as only a Paris-made garment can fit. The silk was of the richest texture, while the lace upon it was in itself a fortune, and the bertha was the most exquisite thing of the kind Alice had ever seen.