They walked to the house, and Gertie watched them as they came up the avenue,—Tom, Rosamond and Emma, Robert Macpherson and Julia, and lastly Godfrey and Alice, he carrying her shawl and travelling satchel, and she looking up into his face in that matter of course, assured kind of way she had assumed since her engagement. But Godfrey had other occupation than attending to her and her pretty coquetries. His eyes had travelled up the road, across the lawn to the broad piazza, and the young girl standing there, clothed in white, with the blue ribbons round her waist and the bright hair on her neck. And that he knew was Gertie; not much taller than when he saw her last, but grown and rounded into beautiful womanhood, which showed itself even at that distance, though not in all its fulness. That came to him when at last he stood with her hand in his looking into her upturned face and drinking in with every glance fresh draughts of her wondrous beauty, which so bewildered and intoxicated him that until Alice spoke to him twice and asked for her satchel he did not hear her. Then releasing Gertie’s hand, he turned to Alice and said: “I beg your pardon. I did not know you were speaking to me.” Then he kissed Edith, and tossed little Arthur in his arms, and shook his father’s hand, and greeted the servants with his old freedom and kindness of manner, while Gertie stood just where he left her, thinking how differently it had all happened from what she had expected. Mr. Macpherson had been glad to see her, and had shown it, and so had Emma and Rosamond, while Alice had offered her two fingers, and said, in a formal way, “Happy to meet you,” and Julia had offered one finger with a nod and a “how d’ye do, Gertie,” but Godfrey had not said _one word_! He had merely taken her hand and held it, and looked at her, not quite as friend looks at friend after an absence of years, but in a way which puzzled and perplexed her, and made her heart throb quickly, and the color deepen on her cheeks. How handsome he was, and how changed in some respects from the tall, slender youth, who seemed all legs and arms, but who now in the fulness of manhood was not one inch too tall. All the lankness of his boyhood was gone, but the grace and suppleness remained, and his erect form and square shoulders would have become the finest officer that ever drilled his pupils at West Point. On the face, once so smooth and fair, there was a rich brown beard now, and the hair had taken a darker tinge, and curling a little at the ends lay in thick masses around his broad white brow. Even his eyes were softened, though they still brimmed with fun and mischief, and tenderness, too, as Gertie knew when they were gazing into hers. “What do you think of Godfrey?” It was Tom Barton who asked the question, and starting from her dreamy attitude, Gertie replied: “I think him the most splendid-looking man I ever saw.”