It was six years after that, that in the battle of Malvern Hill, July 1, 1862, Jack, a real soldier then, and no longer a boy playing at the mimicry of war, was wounded; and next day the news came to the quiet Brighton home.
Conn had grown to be a young lady in the sweet grace of her twenty summers, and she was her Aunt Sarah’s help and comfort. To these two women came the news of Jack’s peril. The mother cried a little helplessly; but there were no tears in Conn’s eyes.
“Aunt Sarah,” she said quietly, “I am going to find Jack.”
And that day she was off for the Peninsula. It was the Fourth of July when she reached the hospital in which her Cousin Jack had been placed. She asked about him, trembling; but the news, which reassured her, was favorable. He was wounded, but not dangerously. It was a girlish instinct, which every girl will understand, that made Conn put on a fresh white gown before she used the permission she had received to enter the hospital. She remembered—would Jack remember also?—that other Fourth of July on which they had found each other, six years before. As if nothing should be wanting of the old attire, she met, as she passed along the street, a boy with flowers to sell,—for the flowers bloomed, just as the careless birds sang, even amid the horrors of those dreadful days,—and bought of him a bunch of late red roses, and fastened them, as she had done that other day, upon her breast.
The sun was low when she entered the hospital, and its last rays kindled the hair, golden still as in the years long past, till it looked like a saint’s aureole about her fair and tender face. She walked on among the suffering, until, at last, before she knew that she had come near the object of her search, she heard her name called, just as she had called Jack’s name six years before,—
“Oh, Conn, Conn!”
And then she sank upon her knees beside a low bed, and two feeble arms reached round her neck and drew her head down.
“I was waiting for you, Conn. I knew you would come. I lay here waiting till I should see you as you were that day long ago,—all in white, and with red roses on your breast,—my one love in all the world!”
And the girl’s white face grew crimson with a swift, sweet joy, for never before had such words blessed her. She did not speak; and Jack, full of a man’s impatience, now that at last he had uttered the words left unsaid so long, held her fast, and whispered,—