CHAPTER LXIV.
TWO KINDS OF APPRECIATION.
Looking down the long vista of memory, to the many faces turned to me from beds of pain, I find few to which I can attach a name, and one I seem never to have looked upon but once. It is a long, sallow face, surmounted by bushy, yellow hair; it has a clear, oval outline, and straight nose, brown eyes and a down of young manhood on the wasted, trembling lips; I knew it then, as the face of a fever patient, but not one to whom I had rendered any special service, and felt surprised when the trembling lips said, in a pitiful, pleading way.
"We boys has been a talkin' about you!"
"Have you, my dear—and what have you boys been saying about me?"
"We've jist been a sayin' that good many ladies has been kind to us, but none uv 'em ever loved us but you!"
"Well, my dear, I do not know how it is with the other ladies, but I am sure I do love you very, very dearly! You do not know half how much I love you."
"Oh, yes, we do! yes, we do! we know 'at you don't take care uv us 'cause it's your juty! you jist do it 'cause you love to!"
"That is it exactly—just because I love to, and because I want you to get well and go to your mothers."
"Yes! but the boys says you don't care about 'em when they get well."