“He stopped for a few hours over the Virginia line to see his wife, and I rode the livelong night that I might have this glimpse of you. Methinks I should almost have deserted to come back for a look at you all, had I not persuaded Dunn to choose me on this expedition.”
“And where are you to meet him?”
“At Charlotte, three days hence.”
“When Eustace—when Master Singleton,”—Betty corrected herself, with a vivid blush, “wrote, saying you were dead, mother and I were like to go crazy with grief. He wrote it kindly, but for two days mother did not leave her bed.”
“And what did Joscelyn say?”
“Oh, Joscelyn cried till her eyes were all red and puffed, and reminded us how you and she used to ride and read and walk together without even so much as a sharp word until the war talk came on. She did much to comfort mother.”
“God bless her! But you were not long in suspense?”
“No; but mother had already prepared to have a service in your memory, and Janet and Patience had practised the hymns.”
“Well, there was at least a grave to sing over,” laughed Richard; but his mother was crying, even to think of those sad hours.