"Is it jest; or earnest?" asked Lottie, appealing to Harold.
"Dead earnest, Miss King; and for medicine we had sumac and white-oak bark."
"No matter what ailed you?"
"Oh, yes; that made no difference."
To Harry's impatience the winter wore slowly away while he was confined within the hospital walls; yet the daily, almost hourly sight of May Allison's sweet face, and the sound of her musical voice, went far to reconcile him to this life of inactivity and "inglorious ease," as he termed it in his moments of restless longing to be again in the field.
By the last of March this ardent desire was granted, and he hurried away in fine spirits, leaving May pale and tearful, but with a ring on her finger that had not been there before.
"Ah," said Lottie, pointing to it with a merry twinkle in her eye, and passing her arm about May's waist as she spoke, "I shall be very generous, and not tease as you did when somebody else treated me exactly so."
"It is good of you," whispered May, laying her wet cheek on her friend's shoulder; "and I'm ever so glad you're to be my sister."
"And won't Aunt Wealthy rejoice over you as over a mine of gold!"
Poor Harold, sitting pale and weak upon the side of his cot, longing to be with his friend, sharing his labors and perils, yet feeling that the springs of life were broken within him, was lifting up a silent prayer for strength to endure to the end.