Presently he asked, 'Could I see Nancy, one day soon?'
'She comes, on her way to school, every day to ask how you are. Poor little maid! she's taken on dreadful about your illness, and wouldn't eat her food when you were so ill. Her mother got quite anxious about her. We'll send for her in a day or two, if you keep well.' And two days after Nancy appeared. She came up to the big chair very shyly, and looked with awe upon Teddy's white, wasted face; then she cried impulsively,—
'Oh, button-boy, will you ever, ever forgive me? If you had died, I should have killed you!'
'No, you wouldn't,' said Teddy, putting up his face and kissing her. 'I was just as naughty; I shouldn't have tried to fight with you.'
'I go to the river every day,' Nancy went on sorrowfully, 'and Farmer Green brought a big net one day and dragged up a lot of stones and old tin pans, but the button wasn't there. I hope it will be washed ashore one day, and so I look along the banks, but I haven't seen a sign of it yet!'
'I'm asking God to give it back to me every day,' said Teddy, with a little decided nod, 'and I think He'll do it. You ask Him too, Nancy, and perhaps He'll do it quicker.'
'I've asked God every day to make you better, and I promised Him if He would do it I would be the Captain's soldier. Yes, I did, and I said I would give up being a sailor, and be just a soldier, like you are.'
Nancy made this statement with great solemnity, and Teddy beamed with delight.
'And are you really enlisted?'
'I don't quite know, but I'm trying to be good, and I ask Jesus to help me every day.'