Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/198

 "I don't know; but it's certain—yes, he's killed," she replied.

"You—cared for him, Cynthia?"

"He was about here—I mean about Mirevaux—as long as I've been. That was only two weeks—'a fortnight,' as he'd say in his funny, English way—but now it seems"

"I know," Gerry said.

"He was with his battalion which was lying in reserve. He and some of the others didn't have a lot to do evenings so they'd drop in pretty often at the cottage Mrs. Mayhew and I had where there was one of those little, portable organs with three octaves and we'd play their songs sometimes and ours—like Good King Wenceslaus and Clementine."

"Did you play?" Gerry interrupted.

"Sometimes; and sometimes he would; and we'd all sing,

In the cabin, in the cañon, Excavating for a mine; Dwelt a miner, forty-niner—

All the English liked that sort best with Wait for the Wagon, you know."

"Yes."

It was a minute or two before she continued; she was speaking of evenings none of them older than two weeks and one of them only the night before last; but they formed part of an experience irrevocable now and of an epoch past.

"They knew pretty well what was going to happen to