“No, Nicholas,” said Bella, holding the right hand of the wounded soldier, while my mother looked on with tearful, and Ivanka with eager, eyes, “no, I will not be discarded. You must not presume, on the strength of your being weak, to talk nonsense. I hold you, sir, to your engagement, unless, indeed, you admit yourself to be a faithless man, and wish to cast me off. But you must not dispute with me in your present condition. I shall exercise the right of a wife by ordering you to hold your tongue unless you drop the subject. The doctor says you must not be allowed to talk or excite yourself, and the doctor’s orders, you know, must be obeyed.”
“Even if he should order a shattered man to renounce all thoughts of marriage?” asked Nicholas.
“If he were to do that,” retorted Bella, with a smile, “I should consider your case a serious one, and require a consultation with at least two other doctors before agreeing to submit to his orders. Now, the question is settled, so we will say no more about it. Meanwhile you need careful nursing, and mother and I are here to attend upon you.”
Thus with gentle raillery she led the poor fellow to entertain a faint hope that recovery might be possible, and that the future might not be so appallingly black as it had seemed before. Still the hope was extremely faint at first, for no one knew so well as himself what a wreck he was, and how impossible it would be for him, under the most favourable circumstances, ever again to stand up and look like his former self. Poor Bella had to force her pleasantry and her lightsome tones, for she also had fears that he might still succumb, but, being convinced that a cheerful, hopeful state of mind was the best of all medicines, she set herself to administer it in strong doses.
The result was that Nicholas began to recover rapidly. Time passed, and by slow degrees he migrated from his bed to the sofa. Then a few of his garments were put on, and he tried to stand on his remaining leg. The doctor, who assisted me in moving and dressing the poor invalid, comforted him with the assurance that the stump of the other would, in course of time, be well enough to have a cork foot and ankle attached to it.
“And do you know,” he added, with a smile, “they make these things so well now that one can scarcely tell a false foot from a real one,—with joint and moveable instep, and toes that work with springs, so that people can walk with them quite creditably—indeed they can; I do not jest, I assure you.”
“Nothing, however, can replace the left hand or the lost eye,” returned Nicholas, with a faint attempt at a smile.
“There, my dear sir,” returned the doctor, with animation, “you are quite wrong. The eye, indeed, can never be restored, though it will partially close, and become so familiar to you and your friends that it will almost cease to be noticed or remembered; but we shall have a stump made for the lower arm, with a socket to which you will be able to fix a fork or a spoon, or—”
“Why, doctor,” interrupted Nicholas, “what a spoon you must be to—”
“Come,” returned the doctor heartily, “that’ll do. My services won’t be required here much longer I see, for I invariably find that when a patient begins to make bad jokes, there is nothing far wrong with him.”