She had been there three months, and on the June morning of which I write I was going up to call upon her for the first time since her return. I found her in the garden, in her big sun-hat and heavy gloves, cutting and arranging flowers with which to decorate the house, for a party of young people was coming from New York that day, and everything and everybody was in a great state of expectancy. During the last year and a half Robert Macpherson had been in Europe looking after his inheritance, which by the death of some one had come indisputably to him at last. Several times he had written to Godfrey urging him to cross the ocean with his sisters and Miss Creighton, and visit him in his Highland home; and as nothing could please the young ladies better, the party had sailed for Europe in time to keep the Easter festival at _Glenthorpe_, Robert’s handsome country-seat. But they had now returned to New York, and Robert Macpherson was with them, and for a week or more they had been stopping with Miss Rossiter and waiting for Rosamond Barton, who was to accompany them to Hampstead. It was two years since Godfrey was graduated, and since that time he had been studying his profession in the city until he went with his sisters for a short vacation to Europe. “Only think, I have not seen Godfrey for more than four years, and have almost forgotten how he looks,” Gertie said, after welcoming me to the garden, and telling me of the expected guests. “It is queer that I have not seen him, but he never happened to be home when I was,” she continued, as she gathered up the bouquets and went with me to the house, where she began to distribute the flowers, putting the most, I noticed, in Godfrey’s room, and seeming more interested in that than in all the others. Edith was in her nursery, and when Gertie’s decorations were completed and she came and stood by her, I was struck as I had been more than once before by their resemblance to each other. They certainly might have been sisters, though Gertie was in her sweet spring-time and Edith in the fulness of her summer. Time had dealt lightly with her, and she looked scarcely older than when she came a bride to Schuyler Hill. She was very happy, too, though I saw she dreaded the coming of the young people from New York. But not for herself. She had reached a height where neither Alice’s haughtiness, nor Julia’s arrogance, nor Miss Rossiter’s insolence, could touch her. She was only anxious for Gertie, who might be treated coldly, if not rudely, by some of the party. And when she remembered the fear which had for so many years influenced every act of her husband toward Gertie, and, looking at the beautiful girl, remembered what Godfrey was, she trembled, notwithstanding the piece of news which she had heard the previous night, and which she communicated to me, with Gertie sitting in the deep window fanning herself with her garden hat, and rubbing the scratch she had received among the roses.