"They died before my remembrance of them. I infer the honesty and inherit the poverty. I was brought up by an aunt and uncle, who didn't want me. One time when I came home from school for the holidays my aunt just looked up from her novel and remarked, 'Oh, Jerry, how dirty you are!' So I ran away to make my fortune."
"Which consists of something over a dollar a day and your keep."
"And the prospect of a pension for my widow."
"Your widow!" Evelyn dropped the hand she was engaged in bandaging. "I didn't know——"
"Oh, I haven't got one yet," Scarlett hastened to assure her. "But I shall, please God, if I live long enough."
"Sergeant, you are talking nonsense," said Evelyn. "Pain has made you flighty."
"'Way up in the seventh heaven," assented Scarlett. "Don't be so cruel as to call me down."
"There!" Having stuck a final pin in the handkerchief she had bound about the wrist, Evelyn folded the soldier's arm across his breast. "Sarah, go fetch me another sash, will you? I'm going to use this one for a sling."
"Which color shall I get you, miss?" asked the maid, preparing to obey.
Evelyn shrugged her shoulders with indifference. "I don't care—though I should think your own taste would lead you to see that blue goes best with this frock. There, Sergeant"—having made a creditable cradle of the ribbon for the soldier's arm and knotted it behind his neck, she came in front of him and surveyed her work admiringly—"that will do, I think. Now, remember, it must not be unbound for four and twenty hours. Promise! I wish you would stop laughing in that silly way and tell me if it feels all right, really."