Part 2 (1/2)

”I will carry her up to the train, sir,” said the young officer.

”I thank you, sir,” said Emmie with a smile; ”but I think I can walk.”

”Well,” said the gentleman who had spoken before, ”I saw him carry you from the wreck to this place; and I am bound to say, I never saw a mother handle her baby more tenderly.”

”I am very grateful to him for what he has done for me,” added Emmie with a slight blush; ”and if I needed his services, I certainly should accept his kind offer.”

She took the arm of her father, and walked very well till she came to the steep bank, whose ascent required more strength than she then possessed.

Her father and Lieutenant Somers then made a ”hand-chair,” and bore her up to the car, in which she was as comfortably disposed as the circ.u.mstances would permit. The train started with its melancholy freight of wounded, dead and dying.

”I see, sir, you are an officer in the army,” said Mr. Guilford as the train moved off; ”but I have not yet learned your name.”

”Thomas Somers, sir,” replied our young officer.

”I must trouble you to write it down for me, with your residence when at home, and your regiment in the field.”

Lieutenant Somers complied with this request, and in return the gentleman gave him his address.

”I shall never forget you, Lieutenant Somers,” said Mr. Guilford when he had carefully deposited the paper in his memorandum-book. ”I have it in my power to be of service to you; and if you ever want a friend, I shall consider it a favor if you will come to me, or write to me.”

”Thank you, sir; I am very much obliged to you. But I hope you won't consider yourself under any obligations to me for what I have done. I couldn't have helped doing it if I had tried.”

”Lieutenant Somers, you are in luck,” said the gentleman who had accompanied him before. ”That is Senator Guilford, of ----, and he will make a brigadier-general of you before you are a year older.”

CHAPTER III

A FRIEND AT COURT

Lieutenant Somers sat down in one corner of the car, near the seats occupied by Miss Guilford and her father. He was just beginning to be conscious of the fact that he had done a ”big thing;” not because he had helped one of G.o.d's suffering creatures, but because she happened to be a Senator's daughter. But he still had the happy reflection, that what he had done had been prompted by motives of humanity, not by the love of applause, or for the purpose of winning the favor of a great man who could dispense the ”loaves and fishes” when he should need them.

He was rather sensitive. He was a young man of eighteen, and he had not yet become familiar with the grossness and selfishness of this calculating world. He was rather offended at the patronage which the Senator had proposed to bestow upon him, and he even regretted that he had so readily given him his address.

Lieutenant Somers regarded himself as emphatically a fighting officer; and the idea of working his way up to distinction by the favor of a member of Congress was repulsive to him. He really wished the Hon. Mr.

Guilford had only thanked him for what he had done, and not said a word about having it in his power to be of service to him.

While he was meditating upon the events which had transpired, and the Senator's patronizing offer, he saw Captain de Banyan enter the forward door of the car through which the gentleman who had taken so much pains to compliment the young officer had disappeared a short time before. The distinguished captain walked through the car directly to the seat of the lieutenant, who had not even yet ceased to blush under the praises which had been bestowed upon him.

”Somers, your hand,” said he, extending his own. ”I have heard all about it, and am proud that our regiment has furnished so brave and devoted a man. Oh, don't blush, my dear fellow! You are a modest man. I sympathize with you; for I am a modest man myself. I didn't get over blus.h.i.+ng for three weeks after his imperial majesty, the Emperor of France, complimented me for some little thing I did at the battle of Palestro.”

”I thought that was at Magenta,” added Somers.

”So it was. The fact is, I have been in a great many battles, and I get them mixed up a little sometimes. But you are in luck, Somers,” continued the captain in a lower tone, as he seated himself by the side of his fellow-officer.

”Why so?”

”They say she is the daughter of a Senator.”

”What of that?”