Six days passed, and then in the gray light of the next morning he opened his weary waiting eyes and saw bending over him the fair face that for two long years, and all through his hopeless agony he had longed for, and as he reached his hand to her in mute gratitude, unable to speak, he felt it clasped, and the next instant she was on her knees beside him and pressing a tear-wet face upon it, and he was listening to the first prayer she ever uttered!
Gone now like a flash of light were all those weary months of heart-hunger! Gone all the agony and despair of that day and night on the battlefield! Gone all the hours of pain through which he counted the moments one by one as he watched the door! No more was he lying upon a narrow cot listening to the moans of the wounded as he saw the dead carried out! Instead was he resting on a bed of violets and listening to the heart throbs of thankfulness and supplication murmured by an angel! And if ever a prayer reached the heavenly throne it was that one! When it was finished, and her loving blue eyes were looking into his, he whispered:
"Liddy, God bless you! Now I shall live."
Such is the power of love!
I feel that here and now I must beg the kind reader's pardon for introducing so much that is painful and sad in the lives of these two, fitted by birth and education for peace and simple home happiness. War and all its horrors is not akin to them and was never meant to be. Rather should their footsteps lead them where the bobolink sings as he circles over a green meadow, and the blue water lilies stoop to kiss the brook that ripples through it; or where the fields of grain bend and billow in the summer breeze; or the old mill-wheel splashes, while the white flowers in the pond above smile in the sunlight. If the patient reader will but follow their lives a little further, only peace and happiness and all the gentle voices of nature shall be their companions.
For a month, while cheered by the presence of her devoted father, Liddy nursed that feeble spark of life back to health and strength as only a tender and heroic woman could. All the dread aftermath of war that daily assailed her every sense, did not make her falter, but through all those scenes of misery and death she bravely stood by her post and her love-imposed duty. How hard a task it was, no one unaccustomed to such surroundings can even faintly realize, and it need not be dwelt upon. When she had fulfilled the most God-like mission ever confided to woman's hands—that of caring for the sick and dying—and when returning strength made it possible to remove her charge, those three devoted ones returned to the hills of old New England.
How fair the peaceful valley of Southton seemed once more, and how clear and distinct the Blue Hills were outlined in the pure September air! The trees were just gaining the annual glory of autumn color; but to Liddy they brought no tinge of melancholy, for her heart was full of sweetest joy. She had saved the one life dearest on earth to her, and now the voices of nature were but sounds of heavenly music. And how dear to her was her home once more, and all about it! The brook that rippled near sounded like the low tinkle of sweet bells, and the maple by the gate whispered once again the tender thoughts of the love that had first come to her beneath them. She was like a child in her happiness, and every thought and every impulse was touched by the mystic, magic wand of love. Few ever know the supreme joy that came to her and none can except they walk with bleeding hearts and weary feet through the valley of despair, bearing the burden of a loved one's life.
The first evening she was alone with her father, she came as a child would, to sit upon his knee, and putting her arms around his neck whispered:
"Father, I never knew until now what it means to be happy, and how good and kind you could be to me, and how little it is in my power to pay it all back. I can only love and care for you as long as I live, or as long as God spares your life."
And be it said, she kept her promise.