That was the road which led straight by the cottage door, and Edith’s heart had beaten rapidly as they drew near the turn in the street which would bring the cottage in view, and when at last she saw it, the blood surged swiftly through her heart, and her hands were clasped tightly together as she looked eagerly at what had once been her home. It was not greatly changed, except that it had recently been repainted, while the creeper, which when she lived there had just commenced fastening its little fibrous fingers to the clapboards, now covered two sides of it entirely, and made its present name, Vine Cottage, very appropriate. There was her old room, and the window was open just as it used to be, and the honeysuckle was framed around it, and an open book was lying in it, together with a child’s work-box. It had had an occupant then, and who, she asked herself, forgetting Mary Rogers, until her eye caught sight of Gertie Westbrooke, whose bouquet of daisies and forget-me-nots fell directly in her lap and seemed a welcome to her. Then she remembered having heard from Godfrey that Mrs. Rogers was to be his tenant, and she knew this child with the bright flowing hair and eager face must be the same whose “God bless you” had been the only “God bless you” given her at her bridal. “It is very strange,” she thought, “that this little unknown child should always cross my path with flowers and blessings and welcomes;” and she turned her head to look again at the two figures gazing after her.