Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/335

Rh safe in refuge she sank into a chair with a most bewildered face and tried to collect her thoughts. She seemed like one in a dream. "The soldier" had come. How her heart ached over the thought of that armless sleeve!

"He never said anything about his arm being gone," thought Tilly. "It 's too bad. How blue his eyes are! I never saw such blue eyes!" in a maze of innocent wonder and excitement. Her thoughts so ran away with her that when her mother called through the door, "Dinner 's ready, Tilly," poor Tilly was not half dressed, and kept them waiting ten minutes or more, which drew down upon her from her father a rebuke that it hurt her sorely to have "the soldier" hear. But "the soldier" was too happy to be disturbed by small things. Since his mother's death Joe had not seen anything so homelike, so familiar, as this dinner in Mrs. Bennet's little kitchen. He made friends with Captain 'Lisha at once; the old man could not ask questions enough about the war, and Joe answered them all with a patience which was perhaps more commendable than his accuracy. Tilly sat by, listening in eager silence not a word escaped her; when her eyes met Joe's she colored and looked away.

"I don't care if she is twenty-six," thought Joe, "she is just like a child."

Mrs. Bennet, with hospitable fervor, had insisted that Joe should not go back to the town, but should