"What were you sighing about, then?"
He was silent for a minute, and then said:
"Well you see, one cannot help sighing a little at the thought that one is laid up, a useless man, when one is scarce twenty-one."
"You have done your work, Terence. You have made a name for yourself, when others are just leaving college and thinking of choosing a profession. You have done more, in five years, than most men achieve in all their lifetime.
"This is the first time I have heard you grumble. I know it is hard, but what has specially upset you, today?"
"I suppose I am a little out of sorts," he said. "I was thinking, perhaps, how different it might have been, if it hadn't been for that unlucky shell."
"You mean that you might have gone on to Burgos, and fallen in the assault there; or shared in that dreadful retreat to the frontier again."
"No. I was not thinking of Spain, nor even of the army. I was thinking of here."
"But you said, over and over again, Terence, that you will be able to ride, and drive, and get about like other people, in time."
"Yes, dear. In many respects it will be the same, but not in one respect."