“I would spare anything to him,” said Terry, fervently.  “Julius, it is finer than going into battle!”

“I thought you did not care much for battles, Terry.”

“If it was battles, I should not mind,” said the boy; “it is peaceful soldiering that I have seen too much of.  But don’t you bother my father, Julius, I won’t grumble any more; I made up my mind to that.”

“I know you did, my boy; but you did so much futile arithmetic, and so often told us that a+b-c equalled Peter the Great, that Dr. Worth said you must not be put to mathematics for months to come, and I have told your father that if he cannot send you to Oxford, we will manage it.”

A flush of joy lighted up the boy’s face.  “Julius, you are a brick of a brother!” he said.  “I’ll do my best to get a scholarship.”

“And the best towards that you can do now is to get well as soon as possible.”

“Yes.  And you lie down on the sofa there, Julius, and sleep—­Rose would say you must.  Only I want to say one thing more, please.  If I do get to Oxford, and you are so good, I’ve made up my mind to one thing.  It’s not only for the learning that I’ll go; but I’ll try to be a soldier in your army and Bowater’s.  That’s all that seems to me worth the doing now.”

So Julius dropped asleep, with a thankworthy augury in his ears.  It is not triumph, but danger and death that lead generous spirits each to step where his comrade stood!

CHAPTER XXXII The Salvage

Frank was certainly better.  Ever since that sight of Eleonora he had been mending.  If he muttered her name, or looked distressed, it was enough to guide his hand to her token, he smiled and slept again; and on the Sunday morning his throat and mouth were so much better, that he could both speak and swallow without nearly so much pain; but one of his earliest sayings was, “Louder, please, I can’t hear.  When does she come?”

Mrs. Poynsett raised her voice, Anne tried; but he frowned and sighed, and only when Miles uttered a sea-captain’s call close to his ear, did he smile comprehension, adding, “Were you shouting?” a fact only too evident to those around.

“Then I’m deaf,” he said.  And Anne wrote and set before him, “We hope it will pass as you get better.”  He looked grateful, but there was little more communication, for his eyes and head were still weak, and signs and looks were the chief currency; however, Julius met Eleonora after morning service, to beg her to renew her visit, after having first prepared her for what she would find.  Eleonora was much distressed; then paused a minute, and said, “It does him good to see me?”

“It seems to be the one thing that keeps him up,” said Julius, surprised at the question.

“O, yes!  I can’t—­I could not stay away,” she said.  “It is all so wrong together; yet this last time cannot hurt!”