Meanwhile Edith had been thinking, and as the result of her thought she said: “Mrs. Rogers, will it comfort you to know that if you die Gertie shall come to live with me, and that I will take care of her?” Then the quivering lips managed to say: “Yes,” and feeling for Gertie’s hand Mary put it in Edith’s, and whispered “Yours,” while the sweat drops on her face grew larger and thicker with her agonizing efforts to tell what she could not. How hard she tried to make them understand the secret she had kept so long, and once she took the shawl which lay near her, and folding it up to look like a child, she held it close to her bosom as a mother holds her baby, and then with her hand pointed to Gertie, and from her to Edith, mumbling the one word, “Yours, yours.” “What does she mean?” Edith asked in great perplexity. “It must be something about little Jamie,—that you will take care of him perhaps. Is that it?” Mrs. Rogers’ “No-o-o” came with a moaning cry, followed at last by the word “equal,” spoken so plainly that there could be no mistake. “Equal,” Edith repeated, thoughtfully; and then, as a sudden idea came into her mind, her face flushed a little, and, remembering the pride and haughtiness at Schuyler Hill, and the opposition she might have to encounter, she hesitated a moment before she asked: “You wish Gertie to come to me as an equal?” There was a decided nod, and then Edith glanced at the beautiful girl beside her standing with clasped hands, her head bent forward to listen, with a look of surprise and wonder in her eyes. That she should go to Schuyler Hill as anything _but_ an equal had never occurred to her, and the question hurt her a little, and brought a flush of pride into her face as she waited Edith’s reply. “Surely, they can make no menial of her,” Edith thought, as she looked again at the young girl just budding into womanhood, and resolving to brave everything she said, as if there had never been a doubt in her mind. “Certainly, Mrs. Rogers, she shall come as an equal, and have every possible advantage. I promise you that solemnly. Are you satisfied?” Mary nodded, while her eyes still wore that look of intense longing, as if there was something more which she wished to tell. But she could not, though she kept repeating “_Yours, yours_.” They could not guess her meaning, and thought her mind was wandering; but the motion of dissent she made when they hinted as much was a proof to the contrary. Very sleepy, and uncomfortable, and a little impatient withal, Colonel Schuyler waited in the adjoining room, wholly unsuspicious of the compact which was to affect him so seriously. But Edith did not forget him, or that it was his right to have something to say on the matter; and when she saw the sick woman was quiet, she went out to him, and laying her arm caressingly across his neck, said: