Katy was proving herself a true woman, who remembered only the good there was in Wilford, and Morris did not love her less for it. She was all the dearer to him, all the more desirable, and he told her so, winding his arms about her, and resting her head upon his shoulder, where it lay just as it had never lain before, for with the first kiss Morris gave her, calling her “My own little Katy,” she felt stealing over her the same indescribable peace she had always felt with him, intensified now, and sweeter from the knowing that it would remain if she should will it so. And she did will it so, kissing Morris back when he asked her to, and thus sealing the compact of her second betrothal. It was not exactly like the first. There was no tumultuous emotions, or ecstatic joys, but Katy felt in her inmost heart that she was happier now than then; that between herself and Morris there was more affinity than there had been between herself and Wilford, and as she looked back over the road she had come, and remembered all Morris had been to her, she wondered at her blindness in not recognizing and responding to the love in which she had now found shelter.
It was very late that night when Katy went up to bed, and Helen, who was not asleep, knew by the face on which the lamp-light fell that Morris had not sued in vain. Aunt Betsy knew it, too, next morning, by the same look on Katy’s face when she came down stairs, but this did not prevent her saying abruptly, as Katy stood by the sink,
“Be you two engaged?”
“We are,” was Katy’s frank reply, which brought back all Aunt Betsy’s visions of roasted fowls and frosted cake, and maybe a dance in the kitchen, to say nothing of the feather bed which she had not dared to offer Katy Cameron, but which she thought would come in play for “Miss Dr. Grant.”
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE PRISONERS.
Many of the captives were coming home, and all along the Northern lines loving hearts were waiting, and friendly hands outstretched to welcome them back to “God’s land,” as the poor, suffering creatures termed the soil over which waved the stars and stripes, for which they had fought so bravely. Wistfully thousands of eyes ran over the long columns of names of those returned, each eye seeking for its own, and growing dim with tears as it failed to find it, or lighting up with untold joy when, it was found.
“Lieut. Robert Reynolds,” and “Thomas Tubbs,” Helen read among the list of those just arrived at Annapolis, but “Captain Mark Ray” was not there, and, with a sickening feeling of disappointment, she passed the paper to her mother-in-law, and hastened away, to weep and pray that what she so greatly feared might not come upon her.
It was after Katy’s betrothal, and Helen was in New York, hoping to hear news from Mark, and perhaps to see him ere long, for as nearly as she could trace him from reports of others, he was last at Andersonville. But there was no mention made of him, no sign by which she could tell whether he still lived, or had long since been relieved from suffering.
Early next day she heard that Mattie Tubbs had received a telegram from Tom, who would soon be at home, while later in the day Bell Cameron came round to say that Bob was living, but that he had lost his right arm, and was otherwise badly crippled. It never occurred to Helen to ask if this would make a difference. She only kissed Bell fondly, rejoicing at her good fortune, and then sent her back to the home where there were hot discussions regarding the propriety of receiving into the family a maimed and crippled member.
“It was preposterous to suppose Bob would expect it,” Juno said, while the mother admitted that it was a most unfortunate affair, as indeed the whole war had proved. For her part she sometimes wished the North had let the South go quietly, as they wanted to, and so saved thousands of lives, and prevented the country from being flooded with cripples and negroes, and calls for more men and money. On the whole, she doubted the propriety of prolonging the war; and she certainly doubted the propriety of giving her daughter to a cripple. There was Arthur Grey, who had lately been so attentive; he was a wealthier man than Lieutenant Bob, and if Bell had any discretion she would take him in preference to a disfigured soldier.