of her hopes, and found a part of what she sought in the slow nod with which he answered:

“Major Greyson wouldn’t have said it if it were not true; and, more than that, he told me he had hopes. Thank God I brought you, dear. Your father has been sleeping quietly ever since your visit. He longed so for some of you to come, and wondered in his fever where you were.”

“Oh, Cousin Henry,” Lucy cried, a desperate longing rising in her own heart, “how many days before Mother can be here? Surely the trains must be running better now?”

“They are running every minute of the day and night, but not just along her way, which is north-west. And mostly they are freight cars, crammed with men and munitions, being rushed to where they are most needed. You see, it’s hard to tell just when she can get here, for of the several telegrams I know she has sent only one reached me.”

Lucy sat drearily silent.

“It won’t be many days, though,—I’m sure of that,” declared Mr. Leslie, speaking in a more hopeful tone after having put the facts frankly. “Look for her any hour, and you may be just as right as I am. And now see here,” he added, rising from the bench and holding out his hand. “I want you to come and get some sleep. You won’t be any good to your father if you are all worn out. Major Greyson says you may lie down in the nurses’ resting room off the ward. I promise to call you as soon as your father wakes.”

Sunset was streaming through the narrow lancet-shaped windows of the room and gleaming on the old stone floor when Miss Pearse’s voice, calling to her, roused her from sleep. “The Colonel is awake now,” she said, bending over the cot as Lucy rubbed her heavy eyes.

Lucy sprang up, struggling to collect her thoughts, as she followed the nurse out of the room. She had fallen asleep almost as soon as her head had touched the pillow, and now awake again to the never-ending hammer of the guns upon her ears, she marveled at it. She smoothed back her hair, remembering dimly that she had not fixed it since that morning on the boat, and wondering how long before people living in a place like this could learn to get up and go to bed as though they lived through regular, peaceful hours. Miss Pearse looked as neat and calm as the young nurse who had taught the army girls first-aid on Governor’s Island, though her cheeks were flushed just now with weariness after a long, hard day. “Come in,” she said to Lucy on the threshold of Colonel Gordon’s room.

 Prev. P 19/191 next