Bowing low he left her, and feeling somehow very uncomfortable Peggy went on to her cousin.
CHAPTER XVIII—UNDER THE LINDENS
| “Snatch from the ashes of your sires, The embers of the former fires; And leave your sons a hope, a fame, They too will rather die than shame; For Freedom’s battle once begun, Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft is ever won.” —“The Giaour,” Byron. |
“You are late,” spoke Clifford Owen with anything but an amiable expression when at length Peggy reached his bedside. “Methought you had forgot that I lay here without breakfast?”
“Nay, my cousin,” said the girl apologetically. “I started with thy breakfast some time since, but one of thy generals stopped me; and then, as the broth was cold, I tarried in the hospital kitchen to warm it.”
“Is it the everlasting broth again?” queried the boy irritably. “Odds life! I think that Yankee doctor is determined to keep me here all summer. How can a fellow gain strength with naught but broth to eat?”
“Thee should not speak so of the good doctor,” reproved Peggy gently. “And to show thee that thee should not, know that that same Yankee doctor said, when I was warming the broth, that thee was strong enough to take something other than it. And he had me prepare, what does thee think? Why, a soft-boiled egg and a bit of toast. So there, my cousin! is not that a nice breakfast?”
“It isn’t half enough,” grumbled her cousin. “One little egg, and one piece of toast that would scarce cover a half joe. Why, I could eat a whole ox, I believe. I tell you the fellow wants to keep me on a thin diet for fear that I will get strong enough to fight. I am going to have one of the British surgeons look me over.”
“Thee is cross, and hungry; which is vastly encouraging,” commented the maiden sagely.
The youth looked up at her with the merest suspicion of a smile.