“It is better than being shot, and a great deal better than being burned, as some of the poor wretches were,” Juno said, trying to comfort Bell, who doubted a little her sister’s word.
True there was now the shadow of a hope that he might return; but the probabilities were against it; and Bell’s face grew almost as white as Helen’s, while her eyes acquired that restless, watchful, anxious look which has crept into the eyes of so many sorrowing women, looking away to the southward, where the dear ones were dying.
CHAPTER XLVII.
DOCTOR GRANT.
Morris had served out his time as surgeon in the army, had added to it an extra six months; and by his humanity, his skill, and Christian kindness, made for himself a name which would be long remembered by the living to whom he had ministered so carefully; while many a dying soldier had blessed him for pointing out the way which leadeth to the life everlasting; and in many a mourning family his name was a household word, for the good he had done to a dying son and brother. But Morris’s hospital work was over. He had gone a little too far, and incurred too much risk, until his own strength had failed; and now, in the month of June, when Linwood was bright with the early summer blossoms, he was coming back with health greatly impaired, and a dark cloud before his vision, so that he could not see how beautiful his home was looking, or gaze into the faces of those who waited so anxiously to welcome their beloved physician. Blind some said he was; but the few lines sent to Helen, announcing the day of his arrival, contradicted that report. His eyes were very much diseased, his amanuensis wrote; but he trusted that the pure air of his native hills, and the influence of old scenes and associations would soon effect a cure. “If not too much trouble,” he added, “please see that the house is made comfortable, and have John meet me on Friday at the station.”
Helen was glad Morris was coming home, for he always did her good; he could comfort her better than any one else, unless it were Katy, whose loving, gentle words of hope were very soothing to her.
“Poor Morris!” she sighed, as she finished his letter, and then took it to the family, who were sitting upon the pleasant piazza, which, at Katy’s expense and her own, had been added to the house, and overlooked Fairy Pond and the pleasant hills beyond.
“Morris is coming home,” she said. “He will be here on Friday, and he wishes us to see that all things are in order at Linwood for his reception. His eyes are badly diseased, but he hopes that coming back to us will cure him,” she added, glancing at Katy, who sat upon a step of the piazza, her hands folded together upon her lap, and her blue eyes looking far off into the fading sunset.
When she heard Morris’s name, she turned her head a little, so that the ripple of her golden hair was more distinctly visible beneath the silken net she wore; but she made no comment nor showed by any sign that she heard what they were saying. Katy was very lovely and consistent in her young widowhood, and not a whisper of gossip had the Silvertonians coupled with her name since she came to them, leaving her husband in Greenwood. There had been no parading of her grief before the public, or assumption of greater sorrow than many others had known; but the soberness of her demeanor, and the calm, subdued expression of her face, attested to what she had suffered. Sixteen months had passed since Wilford died, and she still wore her deep mourning weeds, except the widow’s cap, which, at her mother’s and Aunt Betsy’s earnest solicitations, she had laid aside, substituting in its place a simple net, which confined her waving hair and kept it from breaking out in flowing curls, as it was disposed to do.
Katy had never been prettier than she was now, in her mature womanhood, and to the poor and sorrowful whose homes she cheered so often she was an angel of goodness.
Truly she had been purified by suffering; the dross had been burned out, and only the gold remained, shedding its brightness on all with which it came in contact.