"Dandy!" exclaimed Harold, with boyish enthusiasm. "You're a brick, cousin George. Ain't he Mus?"
Alma laughed confusedly. "If a brick means someone wonderfully good and kind, then he certainly is," she replied, looking smilingly from one to the other. "But what would poor Mus do with her dear boy away?"
"I'll write heaps of letters, and then you have Cousin George, you know," he returned confidently, "I'll never be a man, Mus, if I don't go into the world a bit," he added with the gravity of ten years.
George and Alma laughed.
"Well, my boy, a man we must make of you, so I guess we'll have to win Mus's consent, and persuade her to let me take good care of you."
Alma's blush made her look like her old self. Her pretty natural pink and white attractiveness had never returned since Will's death. More and more she dwelt upon his memory, and only her devotion to Harold kept her from absolute retreat.
Edith Esterbrook brought her great comfort, and the girl's choicest thoughts found fruitage in Alma's receptive nature. But nothing had stifled Alma' remorse and useless longing to live again her life with Will.
Supper over, Harold went to George and climbed up on his knee.
"Tell me all about the soldier place," he said coaxingly with wide expectant eyes.
George stroked the dark curly head, and for half an hour explained the life and doings of the academy.