There was reproach in his tone, and it went to Gertie’s heart, and her voice trembled as she replied: “I am glad to see you, Godfrey, gladder than you can guess. I thought so much of your coming, and then when you came home you never spoke to me.” There certainly was a tear on the long eyelashes, and tears on Gertie’s eyelashes were very different things from tears on Alice’s nose, and the impulsive Godfrey snatched up the hand which rested on the railing and held it fast in his own, as he said: “Do you know why I did not speak to you? I could not, I was so completely confounded and bewildered to find you what you are. Tom Barton,—by the way, Gertie, you certainly have no intention of marrying Tom Barton, if he reforms a hundred times?” “No, Godfrey, I have not.” “I thought so. Well, Tom raved about you by the hour, and said you were beautiful; but that does not express it. I wonder now if you know just how you look.” She did not answer him, and he went on: “It is more than four years since I saw you, and I had you in my mind as the little girl I used to tease at the cottage, and who used to criticise me so severely. _Petite_ you are still, it is true, but so changed in everything else, so completely a woman, that for a few moments I think I must have been sorry, feeling as I did that I had lost my little mentor in more ways than one.” He was looking fixedly at her, with strange, wild words trembling on his lips, but there was a bar between him and the bright beauty which so dazzled and fascinated him,—a thought of Alice, the light from whose window was shining down upon the shrubbery, and whose voice, as she leaned from the casement, was heard saying to some one: “Yes, she really is very pretty, but has no _style_ whatever.” “Style be——” Godfrey did not say what, for a look in the blue eyes checked him; but he deepened his grasp on the hand he held, and his breath came hard as he said: “Gertie, you have not yet congratulated me upon my prospects. Do you not think I have chosen well?” To Gertie it did not seem as if he had chosen well. He had nothing in common with Alice Creighton, but she did not tell him so, and she was wondering how she should answer him, when again the voice above them rang out, clear and loud: “I have no fear of that. Her pretty face may attract Godfrey, and lead him to say soft nothings to her on the sly. All men do that, but I fancy I have influence enough to keep him from going far astray.” “Oh, Godfrey, I must not stay here any longer. It is too much like listening. Let me go, please!” Gertie said, trying to release her hand. But Godfrey held her fast, saying to her: “It is not listening. If Alice does not wish us to hear, let her talk in her room, and not out of the window. I cannot let you go yet. I want you all to myself for a little while. I may not get another chance.” He smiled bitterly, and then laying his disengaged hand on Gertie’s shoulder he suddenly asked: