"Gladly, if it were His will; but I hear Him saying to me, 'Come up hither'; and it is a joyful summons."
"Harold, when——" her voice faltered, but with an effort she completed her sentence—"when did this begin?"
"At Andersonville; I was in perfect health when I entered the army," he answered quickly, divining the fear that prompted the question; "but bad air, foul water, wretched and insufficient food, rapidly and completely undermined my constitution. Yet it is sweet to die for one's country! I do not grudge the price I pay to secure her liberties."
Elsie's eyes sparkled through her tears. "True patriotism still lives!" she said. "Harold, I am proud of you and your brothers. Of dear Walter, too; for his heart was right, however mistaken his head may have been."
"Walter? oh, yes, and I——"
But the sentence was interrupted by the entrance of his mother and sisters, May and Daisy, Mr. Dinsmore, and his son and daughter. Fresh greetings, of course, had to be exchanged all round, and were scarcely finished when Mr. Travilla came in with his three children.
Elsie called them to her, and presented them to Harold with all a mother's fond pride in her darlings.
"I have taught them to call you Uncle Harold. Do you object?"
"Object? far from it; I am proud to claim them as my nephew and nieces."
He gazed with tender admiration upon each dear little face; then, drawing the eldest to him and putting an arm about her, said, "She is just what you must have been at her age, Elsie; a little younger than when you first came to Elmgrove. And she bears your name?"