After that Georgie did not longer doubt, and long before Roy left her, her headache passed away and the bright color came back to her cheeks, and one could almost see the filling up of her shrivelled flesh, and the fading of the dark circles beneath her eyes. Georgie was happy again, and that night her sleep was undisturbed by troubled dreams, or horrid dread of retributive justice overtaking her at the very moment when the cup of joy was in her grasp and almost at her lips. CHAPTER XLI. THE BURGLAR. It was the 19th; the very day before the bridal. All the city guests had arrived, and there was a grand dinner at Oakwood, where the three long tables were set upon the lawn beneath the maples, the bright silver, and the gay flowers showing well through the surrounding shrubbery, and seeming to curious passers-by, who stopped a moment to look on, more like a fairy scene than a reality. And Georgie, in her elegant white dress, was queen of the banquet, and quite overshadowed Maude in her simple muslin, with a few flowers in her hair. As some beautiful rose, which has drooped and pined beneath the fervid heat of a hot summer day, revives again after a refreshing rain, and seems fairer than ever; so Georgie, with her mind at ease, blossomed with new grace and beauty, looking so well and appearing so well that none ever forgot her as she was on that afternoon, the last she was to know in peace. Anticipating the festivities of the next night, the guests did not tarry late, but dispersed soon after dinner was over, each making some pleasant remark to the brides-elect, and wishing them as bright a to-morrow as to-day had been. Roy was not feeling well, and he, too, went early, telling Georgie that he should not come again until he came to claim her. There was a moon that night, but occasionally a rift of fleecy clouds obscured its brightness, and it was just as it had passed into one of these misty ridges that Roy met in the avenue with two men, one carrying a bundle, a little in advance of the other, who was walking slowly toward Oakwood. Without a thought as to who they were, Roy bade them a civil good-evening, as was his custom with every one, and then went on his way, while the two men did the same. One was a man sent with some work which had been done for Georgie in town, the other a stranger, who eyed the house curiously as he approached it, and who hesitated a moment when he saw his neighbor go round to a side door and ring the bell. Standing in the shadow, he waited until the ring was answered, and he heard the man say: “A bundle for Miss Burton, from Slosson’s, and the bill.” Taking them both, the servant bade the young man wait a moment while he carried them to Miss Burton, who had gone to her room. The bill was paid, and the messenger from Slosson’s departed, while the stranger stepped to the door, and asked for “Miss Georgie Burton.”