But she had nothing to fear from Gertie, who was neither able nor desirous of attending the wedding. She saw both Robert and Emma frequently, and through the former was carrying out the plan she had formed when he first told her who he was, and gave her the cairngorms from his grandmother. Then she had thought: “If Julia marries Robert I will divide the stones with her, for no one can have a better right to them than Robert’s wife;” and now that it was Emma instead of Julia, she was far better satisfied, and sent a part of the stones to New York, where they were made into bracelets, earrings and pin as her present to the bride. It is not my intention to linger long over that wedding, which came off on one bright morning in September, and at which no one was present save a few intimate friends. Julia, as bridesmaid, was very beautiful, we heard, and at the breakfast coquetted a good deal with Tom, who, after all was over, and the bridal pair gone, came and told us all about it, and said Alice nearly took his head off when he joked her about Godfrey’s absence. “And if you believe me, she is kind of sweet on the rector,” he said; “and now that everything seems to be topsy-turvy and upside down, I would not be surprised if she became our rectoress some day. Wouldn’t she be a jolly one though, with all her cranks and furbelows.” She had gone to New York with the bridal party, and Julia had gone, too, so that they were very lonely at Schuyler Hill, and within a day or two Edith came for Gertie to go home. “Col. Schuyler wishes it; he misses you, I think, almost as much as I do,” Edith said, and that availed to take Gertie back more than anything else, I think. It was the colonel himself who met her at the door, and led her into the house, and told her she was welcome home, and he was glad to see her. And he did seem happier for having her again, and as it was through him she had suffered so much, he tried by every means in his power to make amends, and withheld from her nothing save the one thing which alone could bring the color back to her face, and ease the heavy pain at her heart. Godfrey was studying very hard at his profession, and wrote occasionally to his father stiff, formal letters, pertaining wholly to his health or business, and not at all like the funny, rollicky epistles he had been wont to dash off when he was not as sad and spiritless as now. Once he wrote to Gertie, but she did not answer the letter, though she asked Edith to write and say she had received it, and that he must not write again. Those October days were very dreary ones to Gertie, and she was glad when at last there came a diversion to her thoughts, in the shape of a guest who appeared one day so suddenly and unexpectedly at Schuyler Hill, and of whom I will speak in another chapter. CHAPTER XLIX. MRS. DOCTOR BARRETT.