Part 60 (2/2)

”And what of it?” she asked.

”Nothing -” I said, stammering a little, ”but I wait.”

”He's waiting, poor lad,” she said. ”Have ye not had letters from him?”

”Never; not since that one I sent him through you.”

”He got it, however,” said Miss Cardigan; ”for there was no reason whatever why he should not. Did you think, Daisy, he had forgotten you?”

”No, Miss Cardigan; but it was told of him that - he had forgotten me.”

”How was that done? I thought no one knew about your loving each other, you two children.”

”So I thought; but - why, Miss Cardigan, it was confidently told in Paris to my mother that he was engaged to a schoolmate of mine.”

”Did you believe it?”

”No. But I never heard from him again, and of course papa did believe it. How could I tell, Miss Cardigan?”

”By your faith, child. I wouldn't have Christian think you didn't believe him, not for all the world holds.”

”I did believe him,” I said, feeling a rill of joy flowing into some dry places in my heart and changing the wilderness there. ”But he was silent, and I waited.”

”He was not silent, I'll answer for it,” said his aunt; ”but the letters might have gone wrong, you know. That is what they have done, somehow.”

”What could have been the foundation of that story?” I questioned.

”I just counsel ye to ask Christian, when ye see him - if these weary wars ever let us see him. I think he'll answer ye.”

And his aunt's manner rather intimated that my answer would be decisive. I bade her good bye, and returned along the shadowing streets with such a play of life and hope in my heart, as for the time changed it into a very garden of delight. I was not the same person that had walked those ways a few hours ago.

This jubilation, however, could not quite last. I had no sooner got home, than mamma began to cast in doubts and fears and frettings, till the play of the fountain was well nigh covered over with rubbish. Yet I could feel the waters of joy stirring underneath it all; and she said, rather in a displeased manner, that my walk seemed to have done me a great deal of good! and inquired where I had been. I told her, of course; and then had to explain how I became acquainted with Miss Cardigan; a detail which mamma heard with small edification. Her only remark, however, made at the end, was, ”I beseech you, Daisy, do not cultivate such a.s.sociations!”

”She was very good to me, mamma, when I was a schoolgirl.”

”Very well, you are not a schoolgirl now.”

It followed very easily, that I could see little of my dear old friend. Mamma was suspicious of me and rarely allowed me to go I out of her sight. We abode still at the hotel, where we had luxurious quarters; how paid for, mamma's jewel-box knew. It made me very uneasy to live so; for jewels, even be they diamonds, cannot last very long after they are once turned into gold pieces; and I knew ours went fast; but nothing could move my mother out of her pleasure. In vain Dr.

Sandford wrote and remonstrated; and in vain I sometimes pleaded. ”The war is not going to last for ever,” she would coldly reply; ”you and Dr. Sandford are two fools. The South _cannot_ be conquered, Daisy.”

But I, with trembling hope, was beginning to think otherwise.

So the days pa.s.sed on, and the weeks. Mamma spent half her time over the newspapers. I consulted them, I could not help it, in my old fas.h.i.+on; and it made them gruesome things to me.

But it was a necessity for me, to quiet my nerves with the certainty that no name I loved was to be found there in those lists of sorrow.

And one day that certainty failed. Among the new arrivals of wounded men just come into Was.h.i.+ngton from Virginia, I saw the name of Captain Preston Gary.

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