“You haven't got such a thing as a cigar?” asked the Colonel, wistfully.
Archer drew a thick satisfying partaga from his case and handed it down, with half-a-dozen wax vestas. Then he cantered after his men, and the old soldier leaned back against the rock and drew in the fragrant smoke. It was then that his jangled nerves knew the full virtue of tobacco, the gentle anodyne which stays the failing strength and soothes the worrying brain. He watched the dim, blue reek swirling up from him, and he felt the pleasant, aromatic bite upon his palate, while a restful languor crept over his weary and harassed body. The three ladies sat together upon a flat rock.
“Good land, what a sight you are, Sadie!” cried Miss Adams, suddenly, and it was the first reappearance of her old self. “What would your mother say if she saw you? Why, sakes alive, your hair is full of straw and your frock clean crazy!”
“I guess we all want some setting to right,” said Sadie, in a voice which was much more subdued than that of the Sadie of old. “Mrs. Belmont, you look just too perfectly sweet anyhow, but if you'll allow me, I'll fix your dress for you.”
But Mrs. Belmont's eyes were far away, and she shook her head sadly as she gently put the girl's hands aside.
“I do not care how I look. I cannot think of it,” said she; “could you, if you had left the man you love behind you, as I have mine?”
“I'm begin—beginning to think I have,” sobbed poor Sadie, and buried her hot face in Mrs. Belmont's motherly bosom.