“Yes, Howard,” and Edith’s white fingers strayed caressingly over his hair and forehead. “You know that,—that both of us feel as if I were indebted to Gertie Westbrooke for my life, and I wish to do her a favor. Will you say yes to it?”
“Certainly—certainly. Is it money?” the colonel asked, and Edith replied:
“No. Miss Armstrong’s school is broken up, and Gertie has no teacher. She is a fine scholar, I hear, and anxious to learn. Let her come here every day and recite to Miss Browning. Miss Alice has nearly finished her education, and will soon be gone. Shall it be so? May I tell her to come?”
There was a momentary hesitation on the colonel’s part and then he answered:
“Yes, certainly, yes, let her come. You always had a penchant for this girl, and I must say she seems a very remarkable child.”
And so it was settled that Gertie was henceforth to recite to Miss Browning, and though there was much opposition in the school-room, the colonel stood firmly to his decision, and one pleasant morning in October Gertie brought her books to Schuyler Hill and took the desk assigned her, far removed from her aristocratic companions, who at first scarcely noticed her by so much as a nod of recognition.
But as time went on her sweet temper and quiet, gentle demeanor insensibly won upon them, while they were surprised at her scholarship, so superior in some respects to their own that even Alice stooped more than once to ask information from her. Whatever Gertie undertook she did thoroughly, but her great success as a scholar was owing in part to the interest Robert Macpherson had evinced in her studies ever since he became an occupant of the cottage. He was away now on the Western prairies sketching the scenery there, and so Gertie was thrown upon her own resources; but she was equal to the emergency, and studied early and late to overtake and surpass, if possible, the young ladies who looked upon her so contemptuously. But for any coldness on their part she more than had amends in the extreme kindness with which Edith invariably treated her; while the baby, who was called James for the colonel’s father, was a constant source of delight.
Jamie was a beautiful child, with a mass of dark brown curls, and eyes like his father’s; and even Julia, who had from the first been opposed to his birth, and treated her step-mother with great coolness on account of it, softened toward him, and wrote to Miss Rossiter, who was now in New York, that “he really was a fine child, and that all things considered, she was quite reconciled to his birth, though she felt for Godfrey, who was no longer the only son.”
The baby was a success, and no one seemed to love it more than Gertie Westbrooke. She was passionately fond of children, and devoted herself so much to Jamie that he soon learned to know her, and would cry when she left his sight. And so it came about that she was much with Edith, who each day grew more and more interested in her, and more resolved to care for and befriend her in every possible way.