"I am really worried about it, my son. Where is the wound?" asked his mother.
"Here, Charley, tell them all about it," called Christy to his companion, who had been forgotten in the excitement of the moment.
"Why, Charley Graines!" exclaimed Florry, rushing to him with an extended hand. "I did not know you were here."
"I am glad to see you, Charley, especially as you have been a friend and associate of my son, as you were before the war," added Mrs. Passford.
"I am very glad to see you, Mrs. Passford and Miss Passford," said he, bowing to both of them. "I have been on duty recently with Christy, and I have been looking out for him on the voyage home."
"Charley has been a brother to me, and done everything under the canopy for me. I am somewhat fatigued just now," added the lieutenant, as he seated himself on a sofa in the hall. "He will answer your questions now, and tell you that I am not killed."
"But come into the sitting-room, my son, for we can make you more comfortable there," said his mother, taking him by the right arm, and assisting him to rise.
"I don't need any help, mamma," added Christy playfully, as he rose from the sofa. "I have not been butchered, and I haven't anything but a little bullet-hole through the fleshy part of my left arm. Don't make a baby of me; for a commander in the Confederate navy told me that God made some fully-developed men before they were twenty-one, and that I was one of them. Don't make me fall from my high estate to that of an overgrown infant, mother."
"I will not do anything of the kind, my son," replied Mrs. Passford, as she arranged the cushions on the sofa for him. "Now, Florry, get a wrap for him."
Christy stretched himself out on the sofa, for he was really fatigued by the movements of the forenoon and the excitement of his return to the scenes of his childhood.