“And now tell us, Aunt Selina, did Vernon come home and ask that favor?” wondered Norma, interested in a love-story.
“Oh, yes! He had leave of absence for several months to fully recover from the wound that had partially punctured a lung. He used to ride over to Happy Hills every day, and I tell you we missed him when he returned to his regiment.”
“Where is he now, Aunt Selina?” asked Ruth.
“Gone—his name is carved on the monument at Washington for bravery in the Battle of Bull Run,” whispered Aunt Selina.
“Oh, oh, Aunt Selina! Is he the same one you told me about last spring?” gasped Ruth.
Aunt Selina dabbed her tear-moistened eyes and tried to smile as she said, “The same, Honey.”
“What’s that—tell us, Aunt Selina; we never heard about it,” cried several children.
“Well, Vernon came back North about a year after his leave of absence expired with important letters for a general in Philadelphia. After delivering the letters he was to have two days’ leave in which to go home and see his folks. He rode over to our house one evening and asked my father and mother if he might pay court to me when the war was over. My parents were delighted, for they knew him and liked him. Vernon and I walked out to the very summer house that Ruth was in when she thought of the farm plan, and there he told me what he had said to my parents. He would not bind me, for he said he might never come back. But I said it would make no difference to me—if he never returned I would wait just the same. We exchanged rings—one which had been given me for my birthday and one he had received on his twenty-first birthday. When he left that night mother gave him a paper, but I never knew what was in it until later. When news of his bravery and death came home, the letter contained a ring and a small daguerreotype picture of me. Then mother said he had asked for it the night he went away.”
“Oh, Aunt Selina, how lovely of you!” cried several little girls as they crowded about the old lady and hugged her.
“Rebecca did not return to school again, but as soon as the war was over we wrote and invited Mr. and Mrs. Crudup to bring Rebecca North to visit us. The elders were too heart-sore to come to a country they blamed for all their losses, but Rebecca came and stayed a long time.”