ow, then, so cheerful and happy?" asked Mr. Phillips.

Gertrude had risen, for she saw Dr. Jeremy approaching. She smiled at
Mr. Phillips' question; and after looking into the deep valley beneath
her, gave him a look of holy faith, and said, in a low but fervent tone,
"I see the gulf yawning beneath me, but I lean upon the Rock of Ages."

Gertrude had spoken truly when she said that more than one anxiety and
dread oppressed her; for, mingled with a fear lest the time was fast
approaching when Emily would be taken from her, she had of late been
grieved by the thought that Willie Sullivan, towards whom her heart
yearned with more than a sister's love, was forgetting the friend of his
childhood, or ceasing to regard her with the love of former years. It
was now some months since she had received a letter from India; the last
was short, and written in a haste which Willie apologised for on the
score of business duties; and Gertrude was compelled unwillingly to
admit the chilling presentiment that, now that his mother and
grandfather were no more, the ties which bound the exile to his native
home were sensibly weakened.

Nothing would have induced her to hint, even to Emily, a suspicion of
neglect on Willie's part; nothing would have shocked her more than
hearing such neglect imputed to him by another; and still, in the depths
of her heart, she sometimes mused with wonder upon his long silence, and
his strange diminution of intercourse between herself and him. During
several weeks, in which she had received no tidings, she had still
continued to write as usual, and felt sure that such reminders must have
reached him by every mail. What, then, but illness or indifference could
excuse his never replying to her faithfully-despatched missives?

Dr. Jeremy's approach was the signal for hearty congratulations between
himself and Mr. Phillips; the doctor began to converse in his animated
manner, spoke with hearty delight of the beauty and peacefulness of that
bright Sabbath morning in the mountains; and Mr. Phillips, compelled to
exert himself and conceal the gloom which weighed upon his mind, talked
with an ease, and even playfulness, which astonished Gertrude, who
walked back to the house wondering at this strange and inconsistent man.
She did not see him at breakfast, and at dinner he sat at some distance
from Dr. Jeremy's party, and merely gave a graceful salutation to
Gertrude as she left the dining-hall.

The Jeremys stay