He was present at the ceremony and stood where he could look in Gertie’s face, and it was said by those who watched him that at the words, “I, Gertrude, take thee, Godfrey, to be my wedded husband,” he put up his hand and started as if smitten heavily. He came to me after it was over, and said, in a half-laughing, half-serious way, that there was a feeling in his stomach as if a hornet’s nest had been stirred up, and each individual hornet was doing its best to sting him! I know Gertie thought of him many times that night when she moved a queen amid the brilliant throng, where only one vied with her at all in point of loveliness, and that one, her mother, who, with every shadow lifted from her heart, seemed to have recovered all the beauty of her early womanhood. Edith’s dress was a heavy silk of a creamy tint, with overskirt and bertha of soft, rich lace, while at Gertie’s request she wore her hair in curls, arranged at the back of her head, and held by a coral comb. Coral was very becoming to Edith, and she looked so young and handsome that none would ever have dreamed that she was mother to the bride. They were like two sisters, and the colonel might have passed for the father of them both. He seemed very proud of Edith, and in his eyes, which followed her constantly, there was a world of love and tenderness, which told how dear she was to him, even now that everything pertaining to her early life was known to him and the world. Later in the evening, when the dancing began to flag a little, and the New York belles had one after another tried Gertie’s new Steinway, Edith was persuaded to take her seat at the piano. “Give us one of those sweet, plaintive little airs you sang at Oakwood,” Godfrey said, as he bent over her. Edith had never tried so much as a single note since the day when she learned from her mother that her daughter was alive, but something told her she could sing now, for the iron fingers were gone forever; and selecting a German song, which a year before would have been far beyond her power, she began to sing,—her voice, which had once been so rich, and full, and strong, gathering strength, and depth, and power as she progressed, and soaring up, and up, and up, ever clear, ever sweet, ever ringing, until the whole house was full of melody, and the guests came flocking in to hear. “Edith, my darling,” and “mamma, mamma,” were said in the same breath of astonishment as the music ceased, and Gertie and the colonel laid a hand on Edith’s shoulder. “I never dreamed you had a voice like that. I am prouder of you to-night than ever I was before,” the colonel said, as at a sign from Edith, who was looking very white, he led her away from the piano and out upon a balcony, where she stood a moment to recover herself, and force down the rapid beating of her heart ere she told him _why_ she could not sing before, and that with the confession of everything, and the finding of Gertie, her glorious voice had come back to her again.