Bad Hugh

Right-minded and high-principled, Mrs. Ellsworth had conquered any pride

she might at first have felt--any reluctance to her brother's marrying

her governess, and now like him was anxious to have it settled. But Adah

gave him no chance that day, and late in the afternoon he rode back to

his regiment, wondering at the change in Miss Gordon, and why her face

was so deadly white, and her voice so husky, as she bade him good-by.

Poor Adah! Hers was now a path of suffering, such as she had never known

before. But she did her duty to the doctor faithfully, nursing him with

the utmost care; but never expressing to him the affection she did not

feel. It was impossible to keep his presence there a secret from the two

old negroes, and knowing she could trust them, she told them of the

wounded Union soldier, enlisting their sympathies for him, and thus

procuring for him the care of older and more experienced people than

herself.

He was able at length to return, and one pleasant summer night, just

three weeks after his arrival at Sunnymead, Adah walked with him to the

woods, and kneeling with him by a running stream, whose waters farther

away would yet be crimson with the blood of our slaughtered brothers,

she commended him to God. Through the leafy branches the moonbeams were

shining, and they showed to Adah the expression of the doctor's wasted

face as he said to her at parting: "I have kissed you many times, my

darling, but you have never returned it. Please do so once, dear Lily,

for the sake of the olden time. It will make me a better soldier."

She kissed him once for the sake of the olden time, and when he

whispered, "Again for Willie's sake," she kissed him twice, and then she

bade him leave her, herself buttoning about him the soldier coat which

her own hands had cleaned and mended and made respectable. She was glad

afterward that she had done so; glad, too, that she had kissed him and

waited by the tree, where, looking backward, he could see the flutter of

her white dress until a turn in the forest path hid her from his view.