"Yes, yes,—I know; but you're changed since then!"
So they all spoke to Elizabeth, praising her, confiding in her with loving willingness,—the Daughter of the Regiment.
The gardener was proud of his assistant, and seemed to enjoy the part she took in his labor. They worked till noon, Elizabeth stopping hardly a moment to rest. All this while the prisoner stood watching by his window, and the gardener saw him. The sight occasioned him a new perplexity, and he gravely considered the subject. It was a good while before he said to Elizabeth, speaking on conviction, in his usual low and rather mysterious tone,—
"There's some one will enjoy it when all's done."
"Who is that?" asked she, thinking he meant herself, perhaps.
"One up above," was the answer.
But though Sandy spoke thus plainly, he did not look toward the prison,—and the prison was the last place of which Elizabeth was thinking. It was so long a time since the cell with the window had an occupant, that she was almost unconscious of that gloomy neighborhood. So, when the gardener explained that it was one up above who would enjoy her work, her eyes instantly sought the celestial heights. She was thinking of sun, or star, or angel, may-be, and smiling at Sandy's speech, for sympathy.
He saw her new mistake, and made haste to correct this also.
"Not so high," said he, cautiously.
Then, but as it seemed of chance, and not of purpose, the eyes of Elizabeth Montier turned toward the prison-wall, and fixed upon that window, the solitary one visible from the garden, and her face flushed in a manner that told her surprise—when she saw a man behind the iron bars.