Mrs. Hardy kept close to his side, her troubled attention riveted on him, until she stumbled over a pair of muddy boots.
Then she lifted up her eyes. There on the back of a chair was a coat with brass buttons, and there in the white bed was a sleeping boy.
With a cry like that of a mother-bird kept from her young she flew to the bed, and the released and misunderstood sergeant now left to his own devices capered clumsily about the room.
When Eugene waked from sleep, and saw the white head and eager face of his adopted mother bending over him, his first drowsy exclamations were in French; then he broke into English. “Mrs. Hardy,” he cried, “I was dreaming of you;” and he raised himself, and threw his arms around her neck.
The sergeant heard his wife’s exclamation, “My treasure! I knew you would come back.” And he also heard Eugene’s clear, ringing sentence, “Mother! mother! I have not said it before, except to the king of the park, but I will call you that now to all the world!” At this latter assurance the sergeant’s capering ceased, and he walked soberly to the window.
“Bother these women, they are always crying,” he observed with what he meant to be an infinity of pity and indulgence. Then he drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and gently touched up the corners of his eyes. A minute later he was just about to turn around, when he found it necessary to go through the same operation again. For a number of times his handkerchief went from his pocket to his eyes, until he said with impatience, “I don’t care if they do see me;” and marched to the bed.
“Son,” he remarked, “I am glad to see you back.”
Eugene was sitting up in the bed, looking slimmer than ever in his white nightgown. “Will you take me for your child?” he asked wistfully. “If you will, though I am but a pauper, I shall feel like a prince.”
“We’ll take you,” said the sergeant, winking rapidly, “prince or pauper or whatever you like to be.”