“There! there! little maid, do not weep so sadly. We will go to this new land together, just you and I, and begin once again.” Their tears were falling more gently now. “Try to love me, dear brave child, for I am very lonely!”
Try to love her! Why it seemed to Debby as if she had lived but for this blessed chance.
So they traveled to the land of Debby’s birth, and in a quaint old house on the outskirts of Philadelphia, they began life just as the troublous war ended and the young republic reared its proud head. And into that happy home as soon as they could summon him, came that rascal Jack Martin, and he found there a welcome so loving and true that he disappointed all those who expected only evil of him and became gentleman Jack, and a good foster son to the kindly woman who reigned so nobly o’er his life.
And by and by, when Deborah’s face and form had rounded into perfect maidenly beauty, and the rich brown hair had grown to comely length and waviness, came Doctor Bell to tell his love and doubts.
“I need your help Deborah,” he said humbly, “I love a woman true and sweet, but I fear her. A warrior maid is she, dauntless on the field of battle, and braver than any other whom I know. Can I hope that in the narrow limit of a home her free spirit would find space enough?”
There were tears in Deborah’s eyes as she listened.
“In a chest in the attic,” she whispered softly, “is a tattered suit, an old drum, and an army discharge. I know a maid, who, when her blood runs hotly, goes and kneels beside that chest. When she sees the drum, her hearts throbs until it almost chokes her. When she sees the discharge she bows her head in proud memory of one most truly to be revered and honored—but when she sees the blood stained suit her strength goes from her, and she only remembers one who led her from dark to light, from danger to safety.”
“Deborah! is my home, then, wide enough for my sweet soldier maid?”
“Aye, ’tis as wide as life, as deep as love, and as high as heaven!”
So hand in hand they went to tell their story to loving waiting hearts.