“Not go to Sunday-school! I did not suppose there was any one in this town so heathenish as that! Child, you must go, and, if you do not care to join the school at church, come to the Mission to-morrow at four o’clock. You will find me there, and the Misses Schuyler and several other ladies. Will you come?” Gertie hesitated a moment, and then asked: “Has Mr. Godfrey a class?” “Mr. Godfrey a class! Certainly not. Can’t you go unless he is there?” Alice said, sharply, conscious of a sudden feeling, which, had Gertie been her equal, would have been jealousy. Ere Gertie could reply, there was the sound of a low chuckle in the direction of the street, and, looking round, Alice saw Godfrey leaning over the gate with a most comical expression on his face. He had heard nearly all the conversation, and said to Alice: “Beating up recruits for the Mission school, are you, Alice? Don’t you go there, Gertie. You are too big and too good-looking, and the room smells awful. She got me down there once, and made me hear a class, and the little imps swapped jack-knives, and fought each other, and called me ‘old Schuyler’ behind my back, and wondered what business I had trying to teach the Commandments. No, Gertie, go to the other school if you must go somewhere, and I suppose you must, or lose caste with this young lady. Why, she’s as zealous as the Pope himself with regard to her church and her school. But come, Allie, it is time to go.” And, opening the gate, he held it, while with a barely civil nod to Gertie, Miss Creighton passed out into the street, and, taking Godfrey’s offered arm, walked away, leaving Gertie to look after her and wonder if Mr. Godfrey liked her and meant to marry her some day, and if it was wrong not to be confirmed when she was only twelve years old, and heathenish not to go to Sunday-school when she did not wish to, and could say her lesson at home. * * * * * Miss Rossiter had spent a very pleasant afternoon with her friend Mrs. Barton, at the Ridge House, and enjoyed herself famously in talking of the bride, whom she never could like, she said, even though she must confess that her personal appearance was in her favor. “That was all a hoax about her being lame and old. Godfrey wrote it to tease us,” she said. “She cannot be more than thirty-five, and really has some claim to good looks, while her manners are not bad. But she is an adventuress,—a poor governess, and nothing more; and she has taken dear Emily’s place, and everything must give way to her, and our pleasant home is broken up forever. And Miss Rossiter cried a little as she told of the furniture, which had been sent from the house as not good enough for “my lady,” when I would have liked it so much for the memories clustering about it,—the very bed poor Emily died on, and I saw her, too!”