"What, love?"
"Make you a very, very good little wife, and be so kind to you after all you have undergone."
As she said this, with something between coyness and artlessness that proved very bewitching, I pressed her close to me, and there flashed upon my memory the dream of her, as I lay wounded and athirst near the ditch of the Redan, and also the singular coincidence of her pet goat leading to my discovery when lying half buried under the dead horse and cannon-wheel on the field of Inkermann.
"Papa and Dora," said she, in a low broken voice, "on that day when my great grief came--"
"Which grief?"
"The tidings of your being drowned," she continued, weeping at the recollection, "and when I let out the long-hidden secret of my heart, told me not to weep for you, Harry; that you were far happier elsewhere than on earth; that you were in Heaven; and poor papa said over and over again the Welsh prayer which ends Gogoniant ir Tad, ac ir Mab, ac ir Yspryd Glan."
"What on earth is all that!" I asked, smiling.
"Glory to the Father, the Son, and so on. Well, Harry, it was all in vain. I felt that in losing you I had lost the desire of my eyes, the love of my girl's heart--for I always did love you, and I care not to tell you so openly again," she added, as the tender arms went round me, and the loving lips sought mine. "My crave for news from the seat of war, and the terror with which I read those horrible lists, Harry, are known to myself only; yet why should I say so? many others, whose dearest were there, must have felt and endured as I did."
"All that is over now, pet Winny."
"And you are here with us again, Harry."