"But why, oh, why does he not come to me? Is it possible he cannot find me, my dear, dear, love? Ah, I have it now! He is following Clifford Standish up, and of course he can find no trace of me," she decided, and immediately resolved to insert personals in the prominent newspapers of the next day in the hope of reaching him. When she had exchanged her carriage dress for a lovely house robe, fluttering with lace and ribbons, she sought her mother, with Cissy's letter. Mrs. Fitzgerald rejoiced with her daughter over the coming of her friend, but she said not a word about Harry Hawthorne. She was secretly annoyed at learning that he had followed Geraldine to Chicago. She thought, in dismay: "He may be turning up here at any moment, claiming my daughter, and she is so headstrong, she will never consent to give him up. What shall I do?" But her woman's wit could suggest no answer to the question. She was honorable and high-minded, and shrank from using harsh or underhand means to break off Geraldine's engagement. Geraldine saw the lack of sympathy in her mother's mobile face, and thought, sadly: "She is still unrelenting. I shall have no sympathy in my sorrow until Cissy comes. Then I can whisper all my grief to her faithful heart." And she longed all the more anxiously for to-morrow's sun that would shine on the coming of her beloved friend. And, to lighten her suspense, she spent some time superintending the arrangement of the beautiful room next to her own that was being prepared for Miss Carroll's occupancy. Some of her own favorite books were carried in--Cissy was inordinately fond of reading--flowers were lavished here and there. When it was all ready, the pretty room in pink and silver was dainty enough for a princess. "Cissy will enjoy it so much. She likes pretty things. And I shall buy her some dainty gowns, and--lots of things! She shall see how I love her!" the girl whispered to herself, with tears of joy in her beautiful brown eyes. Then she went to her desk and wrote out and sent the personals she had thought of to the newspapers for to-morrow. "Mamma would not approve, I know, but perhaps she will never find out what I have done. But, at any risk, I would have done it. I cannot give up my own true love! I believe God made us for each other," she thought, tenderly. She spent a restless night, thinking of Cissy's coming to-morrow, and wondering where her lover was to-night in this great Western city, little dreaming that he was speeding from it in the deepening night. CHAPTER XLI. GERALDINE'S SUSPENSE. "Half the night I waste in sighs, Half in dreams, I sorrow after The delight of early skies; In a wakeful doze I sorrow For the hand, the lips, the eyes, For the meeting of the morrow, The delight of happy laughter, The delight of low replies." TENNYSON.