“Rose, darling, is it you?”
Had the dead come back to life? Was that her husband’s voice, and that his step in the lower hall? Rose had supposed the front door bolted. She had not heard it open, and now, when the steps sounded upon the stairs, her heart gave one throb of fear, as all the old superstitious stories of New England lore rushed to her mind. Perhaps on this anniversary of his death he had come back to see her. And perhaps——
Rose did not finish the sentence, for the opening of her own door disclosed the wasted figure of a man wearing the army blue, his face very pale, but lighted up with perfect joy as he stretched his arms toward the shrinking woman by the window, and said:
“Come to me, darling; I am no ghost.”
Then she went to him, but uttered no sound. Her heart was too full for that, and seemed bursting from her throat as she laid her head upon the bosom of her husband, and felt his arms around her waist and neck. Her stillness frightened him, it was so unlike her, and lifting her from the floor, he took her in his lap, and said to her:
“Speak to me, Rose. Let me hear your voice once more. You thought I was dead, and you’ve been so sorry.”
“Yes, killed at Gettysburgh,” came gaspingly at last; and then a storm of tears and kisses fell upon Will’s face, and Rose’s arms were thrown about his neck as she tried to tell him how great was her joy to have him back again.
“I have been so lonely,” she said, “for everybody is gone. Jimmie and Annie, and poor Tom, too, is a prisoner at last, so mother and I are all alone, except”——
Just then it occurred to her that her husband had no suspicion of the great joy in store for him.
“How shall I tell him?” she thought, and her eyes went from his face to the basket and chair where baby’s clothes were lying.