Edith Lyle

by Mary Jane Holmes

“Nothing, nothing, madame, we simply came to call,” Tom Barton replied, inspecting her curiously, as if she had been a Hottentot, and wondering how that dainty bit of flesh and blood in the blue dress and pantalets chanced to belong to her.

“Come to call, did you. I am sorry then I happened to be out. Gertie, I brought this letter from the office for Mrs. Simmons. Tie on your bonnet and take it to her directly,” Mary Rogers said, while a dead silence fell upon the group of young men, each of whom looked at the others inquiringly.

Gertie was only sorry to leave Godfrey, but reflecting that if she hurried he might be there when she came back, she hastened away, while her admirers looked after her until the turn in the road hid her from view. Then Mrs. Rogers spoke, standing up before them with a flush on her face and a dignity in her tone and manner which commanded respect from her audience.

“Young men,” she began, “you came to see Gertie, and I don’t like it, and won’t allow it either. She is too young to have such ideas put in her head, even were you honest, which you are not. Not one of you would marry her, or be willing to be seen with her by your fashionable city friends, if she were older than she is. You do not look upon her as your equal, and you only come to amuse yourselves with her because she is pretty and sweet; but it shall not be. It’s no credit to a girl in Gertie’s position to have a lot of chaps like you hanging round her and putting stuff into her head, and I won’t have a breath of harm done to her future good name by your coming here and talking nonsense, which you don’t mean, and I put it to your honor to do by my child as you would have a body do by your sister if she was as young and innocent as Gertie.”

“By George, you are right! and I give you my hand as a gentleman that by no act of mine shall Gertie be compromised!” Tom Barton exclaimed, as he rose to his feet and offered his hand to Gertie’s champion.

Tom’s example was followed by Robert Macpherson, but Godfrey sat still in his chair. Mrs. Rogers did not mean him, of course. She knew he never would harm any woman, and he was not going to promise not to see Gertie Westbrooke, and talk to her, too, as much as he liked. But it was a good thing to snub that drunken Tom Barton, who was half-intoxicated now, and he felt like cheering Mrs. Rogers, and meant to stay after the others were gone, and tell her so. But Robert Macpherson meant to stay, too, and, after waiting impatiently ten or fifteen minutes, Godfrey arose at last and said good-afternoon, wondering within himself why “Bob would stick himself where he was not wanted.”

Robert had business with Mrs. Rogers, and, when alone with her, he began at once by assuring her that so far as he was concerned she had nothing to fear for Gertie.

“And you will know you have not,” he continued, “when I tell you that she is the very image of the only sister I ever had,—the little girl who died when just Gertie’s age, and of whom I never think without a throb of pain.”

It was this wonderful likeness, he said, which first attracted him to Gertie, and made him so desirous for her portrait, as he had none of his sister. And then he went on to tell how fond he was of his profession as an artist, and that as there were so many fine views in the vicinity of Hampstead, he wished to remain there for a time, sketching and studying the autumnal scenery, and, as he would not of course stay at Schuyler Hill, he wished to rent a room in some quiet house, and take his meals at the hotel.

Had Mrs. Rogers such a room, and would she let it to him for a liberal compensation? Mrs. Rogers was in need of money. Her own health was not good, and Gertie’s education and music would cost so much that Robert’s offer was a tempting one, and she considered it for a few moments, and then said yes, and showed him the large, pleasant room where Abelard Lyle’s coffin had stood, and where, within a few days, easels, and pallets, and brushes, and paint were scattered about promiscuously; for Robert had taken possession, and dubbed the room his “Den,” and was going to paint “La Sœur” from Gertie’s face, and then retouch from his memory of his sister.