Soon after the battle of Cedar Mountain, and Banks's retreat, we had long, full letters from Robert. He wrote a separate note to me, in which he said, "Be kind to Percy." It was the very thing I had not been,—had not felt it possible to be. But, conscience-stricken, I went up to call at Colonel Lunt's, and read our letters to them. Percy walked home with me, and we talked over the prospects and reverses of the war. Of course we would not allow there were any real reverses.
We went on to my little cottage, and I asked her to come in and rest. I remember it was a very still evening, except for a sad south-wind. The breeze sighed through the pines in front of the house, like the sound of distant water. The long lingering of the sun slanted over Percy's brow, as she sat leaning her head on her hand, and looking away off, as if over thousands of miles. Her pretty pale fingers were purple with working on hospital shirts and drawers, and bloody with pricking through the slipper soles for the wounded men. She was the most untiring and energetic of all the young people; but they all worked well.
We sat there some time without speaking. I was full of thought and anxiety, and I supposed she too might feel deeply about Robert.
"Aunt Marian,—may I call you so?" said she softly, at length looking up.
"Why not, Percy? you always do."
"Only, lately, it has seemed to me you were different."
She crossed the room and sat down on a tabouret so low that she was at my feet, and took my hand with a humble sweetness that would have touched any heart less hard than mine.
"I used to love to hear him call you so!" she went on, caressing my hand, which I did not withdraw, though I should have liked well to do so, for I did not at all like this attitude we had assumed of penitent and confessor. "I can't expect you to be just to me, dear Auntie, because you don't know. But oh! do believe! I never guessed Robert's feelings for me. How could I think of it,—and I a married woman!"
"Married! Percy!" said I, astonished at her agitation and the tears that flowed down her pale face like rain.
"Yes," she answered in a voice so low that I could scarcely hear it.