voice, that she did not notice--she didn't remember.

At breakfast she could not conceal her want of appetite, and was glad
when Emily went with her to their own room, where, after relating her
escape from accident, and Mr. Phillips' agency in that escape, she was
permitted by her apparently satisfied hearer to sit down and read to her
in a book lent them by that gentleman, to whom, however, no opportunity
had yet occurred of introducing Emily.

The whole morning passed away, and nothing was heard from Willie. Every
time a servant passed, Gertrude was on the tiptoe of expectation; and
when she heard a tap at the door she trembled so that she could hardly
lift the latch. But there was no summons to the parlour, and by noon the
excitement had brought a deep flush into her face, and she had a severe
headache. Conscious, however, of the wrong construction put upon her
conduct if she absented herself from the dinner-table, she made the
effort to dress with as much care as usual; and, as she passed up the
hall to her seat, it was not strange that, though suffering herself, the
rich glow that mantled her cheeks, and the brilliancy which excitement
had given to her dark eyes, attracted the notice of others besides Mr.
Phillips.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE STRICKEN DEER.

When Gertrude went to her room after dinner, which she did as soon as
she had seen Emily comfortably established in the drawing-room in
conversation with Madam Gryseworth, she found there a beautiful bouquet
of the choicest flowers, which the chamber-maid said she had been
commissioned to deliver to herself. She rightly imagined the source from
whence they came, divined the motives of kindness which had prompted the
donor of so acceptable a gift, and felt that, if she must accept pity
from any quarter, Mr. Phillips was one from whom she could more easily
bear to receive it than from any other.

Notwithstanding Netta's intimations, she did not suspect that any other
motives than those of kindness had prompted the offering of the
beautiful flowers. Nor had she reason to do so; Mr. Phillips' manner
towards her was rather fatherly than lover-like, and though she began
to regard him as a valuable friend, that was the only light in which she
had ever thought of him or believed that he ever regarded her. She
placed the flowers in water, returned to the parlour, and constrained
herself to talk on indifferent subjects until the breaking up of the
circle--part