"No, indeed. If papa wins I am going to stay with mamma. I am going to be her eyes as well as her hands. Mamma would not like the city."
"And how is the little mamma?"
She shook her head. "Not so well and her eyes trouble her very much."
"What a sweet woman she is! I can never forget the night Norton led her to the altar. I have never seen a fairer sight—until now," he interpolated, smiling and saluting Mary with formal bow. "She had a perfect figure and her walk was the exposition of grace." Mary surveyed him with swimming eyes. She went up and kissed him lightly. He detained her a moment when about to take her departure.
"You are a fortunate man, Morgan. In all the world you will find no rarer flower than this. I envy you your ride home. Come again, Mary, and bring Mr. Morgan with you." She broke loose from him and darted off in confusion. He had guessed her secret and well was it that he had!
The ride home was as a dream. The girl was excited and full of life and banter and Edward, throwing off his sadness, had entered into the hour of happiness with the same abandon that marked his campaign with Norton.
But as they entered the long stretch of wood through which their road ran to her home, Edward brought back the conversation to the general.
"Yes," said Mary, "he lives quite alone, a widower, but beloved by every one. It is an old, sad story, but his daughter eloped just before the war broke out and went abroad. He has never heard from her, it is supposed."
"I have heard the fact mentioned," said Morgan, "and also that she was to have married my relative."
"I did not know that," she said, "but it is a great sorrow to the general, and a girl who could give up such a man must have been wrong at heart or infatuated."