But the Major made slow progress toward recovery. The diversity and extent of his wounds prevented rapid healing, and Christmas was long past before the pain and the limp were gone. By March, however, he was well again. Even the cicatrix on his scalp was invisible, for his hair was made to cover it. Then he commenced to visit his friends as of old, and there was no house in Halifax that he went to more frequently, or in which he was more welcome than that of Judge Maxwell.
That he was a devoted admirer of Maud the whole family knew, but their progress as lovers did not seem to be rapid. At least so thought Eugenia.
"You have no heart," she said to Maud one day, indignantly. "You know that he loves you, and yet you never give him an opportunity to declare himself."
"If he desires he can surely make one," returned Maud, "but he is too wise for that. What is the use of doing useless things?"
"Do you mean you really do not care for him?"
"Caring is not loving."
"You might say the same of Dr. Beaumont, and yet you correspond?"
"But I gave him a promise—"
"That you would not become engaged to anyone for a year," interrupted her sister.
"Yes."