Alice had given him up since the day Miss Rossiter drove down to see her, and talked so affectionately of Gertie, and said nothing would please her better than to see her Godfrey’s wife. There had been a few tears in private, a wrench or two in her heart, and then it was all over; for Allie’s love had never been very strong, and but little more than her pride was wounded when Gertie was preferred to herself. Alice had one good trait,—she did not long harbor malice or resentment; and she received Godfrey cordially, and said she hoped he would be happy, and blushed rather prettily when he joked her about the parson, and said she might possibly be his neighbor in Hampstead. Two weeks from that day the doors and windows at Schuyler Hill were opened wide, and Mrs. Tiffe, in a wild state of excitement and expectancy, was giving the most contradictory orders to the servants, and flitting from room to room to see that all was in readiness for the family, who were coming home and would be there to dinner. Everybody in Hampstead knew the story now, and none liked Edith the less, but rather the more, I think; while the fact that Gertie was to marry Godfrey filled every one with joy, except Tom Barton, who came to the Hill the day we were expecting her, and, handing me a bunch of pansies and English violets, said: “They are for her room. I always associate her with English violets. She is just as sweet as they are, Heaven bless her!” There was a tremor in his voice and his hand shook as he gave me the flowers. He was taking it hard, and I pitied him so much when he said: “There is nothing in the wide world for me to live for now; but I shall _not_ go back to my cups. She helped make me a man, and I’ll keep so for her sake; but I tell you, Ettie, it is pretty tough sledding, and there is a lump in my heart as big as a bass drum. I wish I were dead; I do, upon my word.” How sweet the perfume of those violets was, and how eagerly Gertie inhaled it when she came at last, and I took her to her room. “Tom brought them. He says they are like you,” I said, while a shadow flitted over Gertie’s face, for she knew just how much Tom Barton loved her, and felt in part the burden weighing him down so heavily.