She had liked Jack Heyford very much, and felt that he was a man to be trusted in any emergency, and when she heard that Edna was with him, she said impulsively: “I know she is safe if Mr. Heyford has her in charge. I would trust him sooner than any man I ever saw, and know I should not be deceived.” “You might do that, Maude, you might. Jack is the truest, noblest of men,” Georgie said, and her voice trembled as she said it, while Maude actually thought a tear glittered in her black eyes, as she paid this unwonted tribute to her brother. “That reminds me;” said Mrs. Burton, wiping her own eyes from sympathy with Georgie’s emotion, “what about that little child, and what will your brother do, as you did not go on with him?” The dewy look in Georgie’s eye was gone in a moment, and in its place there came a strange gleam, half pain and half remorse, as she answered: “I shall go to Chicago in a few days.” “Is that necessary?” Mrs. Burton asked, and Georgie replied: “Yes, the child keeps asking for _me_, and I must go.” “What child?” Maude asked, with her usual impulsiveness. There was a quivering of the muscles around Georgie’s mouth, and a spasmodic fluttering of her white throat, as if the words she was going to utter were hard to say; then, with her face turned away from Maude’s clear, honest blue eyes, she said very calmly: “It is a little girl my step-mother adopted. Her name is Annie, and she always calls Jack brother, and me her sister Georgie. Perhaps mamma told you my step-mother had recently died.” “No, she didn’t. I’d forgotten you had a step-mother living,” Maude said, and Georgie continued: “Yes, Jack’s mother, you know. She died a month or so ago, and this child met with an accident,—hurt her back or hip, and it was to see her that I was going to Chicago.” Georgie finished her statement quietly, and then, turning to Mrs. Churchill, asked if she should not again wet the napkin and bathe her head and face. She was very calm and collected, and her white hands moved gently over Mrs. Churchill’s hot, flushed face, until she declared herself better, and bade Georgie go and rest herself. Georgie was not tired, and said she would just look in upon Roy, to whom she repeated, in substance, what she had told his mother of the dreadful accident. Roy had heard the most of the particulars from Russell, but they gained new force and interest when told by the beautiful Georgie, whose voice was so low, and tender, and sorrowful, and whose long lashes, half veiling the soft eyes, were moist with tears as she spoke of “dear Charlie and his poor young girl-wife.” That was what she called her when with Roy, not “the girl,” but “his poor young girl-wife.” She had seen at once that with Roy she must adopt a different tone with regard to Edna, for Roy was eager in his inquiries and sorry that she had not come to Leighton, “her proper place,” he said.