“Oh, dear, deary me,” sighed Miss Suzy to herself, “I hope she won’t marry him out’n gratitude. I truly hope and trust she won’t marry him out’n gratitude. Her property is all constipated by the rebels, and he hasn’t the means, with his little salary, of supporting us and a wife, and a whole lot of little ones besides. Lord have messy upon us!”
While Miss Suzy thus bemoaned herself, little Mim found his tongue, and answered, like a miniature Bayard or Roland:
“Miss Fielding, I now thank Heaven for my broken head, and for every pain that I have suffered in your cause. Miss Fielding, I would have had not only my head, but every bone in my body broken, to have proved my regard for you, or for any of the ladies, and to have awakened such esteem in your mind would have been consolation and reward enough,” he added with enthusiasm.
“Oh, Lord, it’s coming,” moaned Miss Suzy to herself, “it’s coming! I know it’s coming. They’ll be engaged before she leaves the room, and married before the month is out.”
Elfie laid her hand lightly on the bandaged head.
“Did you suffer much pain, Mr. Mim?”
“No, Miss Fielding—nothing to speak of,” he answered, slightingly. And then, as if to change conversation from himself, he laughed and said, “Not near so much as some others.”
“Why, Mim, dear, what do you mean? Were any of the others injured? Not that I care if every coward among them had had his neck broken, so that you were safe. But I thought that you were the only one wounded.”
“So I was, Miss Fielding. But I had rather had my wound than been compelled to change clothes with any of those guerrillas, and caught—what some of my companions caught! On my own account I bear no malice to that big man, for, if he did break my head, he left me my clean clothes.”
Elfie laughed at the recollection of the exchange.