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One morning Hilland's and Graham's regiments were ordered out on what was deemed but a minor reconnoissance; and the friends, rested and strong, started in high spirits with their sadly shrunken forces. But they knew that the remaining handfuls were worth more than full ranks of untrained, unseasoned men.
Hilland's longings for a life hereafter, and his words of regret that she had lost the faith of her girlhood, were neutralized by the bitter revolt of her spirit against her immeasurable misfortune. Her own experience was to her a type of all the desolating evil and sorrow of the world; and in her agony she could not turn to a God who permitted such evil and suffering.
See that white-haired old woman leading that exquisite little girl to yonder group of soldiers. See how they doff their hats to her. There's another picture for you." Hilland's magnificent appearance soon attracted half a dozen village belles about him, each offering some dainty; and one a black-eyed witch a little bolder than the others offered to fasten a rose from her hair in his button-hole.
I must now pay my respects to my aunt, or I shall lose not only her good graces but my supper also;" and with a smiling bow he turned and walked rapidly up the path, and disappeared within Mrs. Mayburn's open door. Grace looked after him, and the perplexed contraction of her brow deepened. She picked up Hilland's letter, and slowly and musingly folded it.
After an impressive burial service had been read, the young girls passed to and fro between the graves, throwing flowers in each and singing as they went a hymn breathing the certainty of the immortality that had been the object of poor Hilland's longing aspiration. Graham's heart thrilled as he heard the words, for they seemed the answer to his friend's questions.
She was a soldier's daughter, and could best be won by Hilland's soldier-like wooing. Not that she could have been won any more readily by direct and impetuous advances had not her heart been touched, but the probabilities are that her heart never would have been touched by Graham's army-of-observation tactics.
But when he had given it in his own way, could she be sure it was a cool, easily managed preference that he might at his leisure transfer to another who satisfied his reason and taste even more fully than herself? If this were true, her mind would be at rest; and she could like Hilland's friend heartily, as one of the most agreeable human oddities it had been her fortune to meet.
On the day following Captain Windom marched triumphantly away, and his absence proved to Rita that the question was settled, no matter what she had said when having little breath left to say anything. She and her brother followed speedily, and Graham accompanied them, to superintend in person the setting up of a beautiful marble column which he and Grace had designed for Hilland's grave.
His aunt understood him sufficiently well not to urge the matter, and it may be added that Grace did also. Hilland's arm healed rapidly, and happy as he was in his home life at the cottage he soon began to chafe under inaction.
Hilland's letter found him in Egypt, and only a few weeks had elapsed after its reception when, with deep anxiety, he rang the bell at his aunt's cottage door. He had not stopped to ask for letters in London, for he had learned that by pushing right on he could catch a fast outgoing steamer and save some days.
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