How plump and pretty were the hands which lay, one on her lap, and the other on the green sward beside her, where it had fallen in the abandonment of sleep. How small, too, and perfectly formed were the little feet, and Edith wondered to see them encased in such dainty boots, just as she wondered at the whole appearance of the child who interested and fascinated her so much.
“I wish she would awake. I’d like to talk with her,” she thought, and as if the wish had communicated itself to Gertie, the long lashes lifted slowly, disclosing a pair of eyes so bright and blue and lovely in their expression, that Edith half started, and thought, with a pang, of eyes she had seen years ago, but which now were closed forever and laid away beneath the turf at her feet.
Gertie was quite awake now, and a sweet smile broke over her face and showed itself in her very eyes when she saw who was with her.
“Oh, Mrs. Schuyler,” she said, advancing at once and without the least timidity toward the lady. “Oh, Mrs. Schuyler, it’s you. I was waiting for Godfrey, and went to sleep and had such a nice dream of mother, who was alive, I thought, and father too.”
She was standing close to Edith, who, reaching out her hand, took Gertie’s in it, and forgetting that Mrs. Rogers was not the child’s own mother, said, in some surprise:
“Your mother is not dead!”
“Yes, she is,” Gertie replied. “She died when I was a little tiny girl, and father married again and Auntie Rogers took me away, and then father died, too, in Italy. Is not Mr. Godfrey coming to see the grave? he said he would yesterday.”
She was more intent on Godfrey than on her parentage, and, at her mention of the grave, Edith asked, quickly:
“What grave is Godfrey coming to see?”
“This one,” and Gertie pointed to the flower-bed where the vase was standing. “You see,” she continued, “this is Mr. Lyle’s grave,—Mr. James A. Lyle, who died in saving Mr. Godfrey’s life. He was working on the tower of the house at Schuyler Hill, and Mr. Godfrey was a little boy, and climbed up and slipped, and Mr. Lyle caught him, and threw him where he was safe, but fell himself down—down—down—to the very earth, where he was smashed all to bits, and they took him up as dead as dead could be!”