“Nor I you,” she returned, tenderly pressing his hand, which she had taken in hers; “you can hardly feel so proud of me as I do of my brave soldier-brother, who has fought and bled for his country. What have I ever done in comparison with that?”
“Somebody’s coming! I hear wheels!” exclaimed Bertie. “Yes, there’s Dr. Jasper’s gig right at the gate; and he’s helping a lady out; and there’s a little boy, too.”
Miriam laid aside her sewing, and hurried out to meet and welcome her guests.
The doctor introduced his wife, explaining that he had persuaded her to disregard the rules of etiquette and make the first call.
“I assure you I appreciate your kindness, Mrs. Jasper,” Miriam said, with a warm grasp of the little gloved hand, and an admiring look into the brown eyes of the pretty ex-widow; “and Ronald will be delighted; he has just been telling us of all your and your mother’s goodness to him;—yours, too, doctor.”
Her voice trembled and her eyes filled.
“It wasn’t much I could do,” Serena said, in her soft, languishing tones, “and though I was the biggest kind of a rebel, I couldn’t for the life of me help liking him; and so, just for his sake, you see, I yielded to the doctor’s entreaties to come without waiting till you had called upon me,” she added, saucily. “So won’t you please take me to him?”
“Yes; he is just here on the porch, and will be delighted to see you,” Miriam answered, leading the way.
Ronald would have risen to greet them, but both the doctor and Serena bade him lie still, for he was almost too weak for any other than a reclining posture.
The Jaspers were scarcely seated when there was another arrival in the person of a young, fine-looking man of gallant bearing, whom the doctor and Ronald greeted most heartily as “Warren,” and introduced to Mrs. Heath and Miriam as Captain Charlton.