It was strange the effect Edith’s presence in the sick-room had upon Miss Rossiter. She had fully indorsed Gertie,—ay, had in some sort adopted her in her own mind, and could not bear that another should share her watch and care and anxiety for the only sick person in whom she had ever been so deeply interested. But as soon as Edith’s tears were dried, and she was herself again, the calm, quiet dignity of the mother asserted itself, and Miss Rossiter, who was not the mother, was compelled to stand aside while another took her place and did the thousand little things which only a mother could have thought to do. And Edith did not grow tired with constant watching. On the contrary, both strength and flesh came back to her, and, when at last the fever turned, and she knew her child would live, she gained faster than Gertie, and it seemed to the colonel that she grew young and fair and smooth each day until it was very hard to believe her the mother of the sick girl, who, with the marks of disease upon her face, looked her nineteen years. The sea was not so placid now, the boat was tossing on the waves, and Gertie sat alone on deck, and called in vain for Godfrey, who had deserted his post and was nowhere to be found, until one morning, when he came bodily, the wreck of his former self, and climbing the stairs to Gertie’s room, bent over her with words of love which penetrated to her dull ear, and must in part have been comprehended. After that Godfrey stayed in Miss Rossiter’s house, which seemed a sort of hospital, and was so distasteful to Miss Julia, when at last she came from Florida, that she accepted her Uncle Calvert’s invitation, and went to the _poky_ house on Washington Square, where the Sixth Avenue cars on one side, and the University on the other, nearly drove her wild with the never-ending tinkle of their bells.