She evidently did not think it so dreadful to be connected with the Lyles. She had seen the white-haired, sweet-faced old woman in Alnwick, and seen Jenny Nesbit, too, for Robert had taken her there to call, and she had fallen in love with the grandmother, and tried to pet Godfrey Schuyler, now a big boy in jacket and trousers, and had sickened and grown hot and cold by turns at the vulgarity of Mrs. Nesbit, and then in the splendor and éclat of her home at Glenthorpe had forgotten them all and remembered only that she was Robert’s wife, the great lady of the neighborhood and the happiest woman living. Gertie should come and live with her, she said, and marry a Scottish Lord; but Edith shook her head; Gertie was hers. She could not part with her, and her heart was full of an unutterable yearning to behold the young girl again, and hear her call her mother, and she could hardly wait for the day when the Cuba sailed at last from the harbor of Liverpool, and she knew she was going home to Gertie. CHAPTER LVI. GERTIE. NO. 30 30TH STREET, NEW YORK, _February 18, 18—_. TO COLONEL SCHUYLER: Your son Godfrey is very dangerously ill with typhoid fever. Come at once. MRS. SOPHIA WILSON. This was the telegram received at Schuyler Hill one morning in February, and read by Gertie with a heart throbbing with fear and anxiety for the young man dangerously ill with typhoid fever, and only strangers to care for him. But what could she do? The colonel was in Europe, Julia was in Florida, while she had little Arthur to care for, and even if she had not she could not go herself. It would not be proper under any circumstances, and the colonel would not like it. Something, however, must be done, and calling Mrs. Tiffe she read the telegram and said to her: “You must go.” So it was arranged that Mrs. Tiffe should take the next train for New York, which passed in about an hour, and she departed to make the necessary arrangements for her journey, just as the postman came bringing a letter for Gertie. It was from Colonel Schuyler, and Gertie tore it open and read what it contained with emotions which it is impossible to describe. At first she was stunned and bewildered, and thought it must be somebody else, some other Gertie he meant. “It is not I, surely; it cannot be I, who am _his daughter_,” she whispered to herself, and then she read again: “Beyond the shadow of a doubt you are _our own_ daughter.” It was there in black and white, and it was Colonel Schuyler’s signature, and he signed himself _her_ father. Then the room turned dark to Gertie; there was a humming in her ears, and for a moment she half lost her consciousness, but soon recovering she read the letter for the third time, whispering to herself: