His first home-coming his Aunt remembered long afterward with entire satisfaction. Their little estrangement was forgotten; he was frank and affectionate as he had always been.
He had developed wonderfully; his shoulders had broadened and he was brown and muscular, the boy had become a man. He had quite lost his air of troubled preoccupation born of his doubt and foreboding of the future, for his future no longer troubled him.
Virginia made much of him, and he accepted her solicitude and Jane's, with infinite good-nature.
“A fellow don't have any chance with you two!” he told them laughingly. “Especially when his arm's tied up as mine is.”
“But, dear, this is all we can do!” said Virginia sighing, and adjusting his bandages with tender caressing fingers. “When we heard that your regiment had been in battle, it was just as if you were the only one—as if there were not thousands of others!”
The one disturbing element in Virginia's happiness was Stephen's devotion to Marian Benson. It was little short of tragic that this sturdy handsome fellow should be determined to throw himself away on Tom Benson's daughter. Her prejudice here she felt was not altogether groundless, for Benson at her request had brought his cousin to the farm to call; the meeting had not been very successful however; Marian had been embarrassed and ill at ease, and Virginia had not been able to see in her at all what Stephen Saw. With this one tentative attempt at an acquaintance her efforts in that direction had ceased.
Stephen had been delighted when he heard that Marian had driven out to see Virginia. He heard this from Marian herself, Virginia had not mentioned it.
“Why you never said Marian had called,” he told Virginia, almost reproachfully.
“Didn't I, dear?” she asked drily.
“No; and Marian only chanced to mention it to-day. Didn't you think her very pretty?” he questioned eagerly.