“Oh! you poor creatures!  I hope it was a little better the alternate week.”

“Just the same, except, in lieu of the corn-meal, we had three square inches of corn bread.”

“Is it jest; or earnest?” asked Lottie, appealing to Harold.

“Dead earnest, Miss King; and for medicine we had sumac and white-oak bark.”

“No matter what ailed you?”

“Oh, yes; that made no difference.”

To Harry’s impatience the winter wore slowly away while he was confined within the hospital walls; yet the daily, almost hourly sight of May Allison’s sweet face, and the sound of her musical voice, went far to reconcile him to this life of inactivity and “inglorious ease,” as he termed it in his moments of restless longing to be again in the field.

By the last of March this ardent desire was granted, and he hurried away in fine spirits, leaving May pale and tearful, but with a ring on her finger that had not been there before.

“Ah,” said Lottie, pointing to it with a merry twinkle in her eye, and passing her arm about May’s waist as she spoke, “I shall be very generous, and not tease as you did when somebody else treated me exactly so.”

“It is good of you,” whispered May, laying her wet cheek on her friend’s shoulder; “and I’m ever so glad you’re to be my sister.”

“And won’t Aunt Wealthy rejoice over you as over a mine of gold!”

Poor Harold, sitting pale and weak upon the side of his cot, longing to be with his friend, sharing his labors and perils, yet feeling that the springs of life were broken within him, was lifting up a silent prayer for strength to endure to the end.

A familiar step drew near, and Dr. King laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder.

“Cheer up, my dear boy,” he said, “we are trying to get you leave to go home for thirty days, and the war will be over before the time expires; so that you will not have to come back.”

“Home!” and Harold’s eye brightened for a moment; “yes, I should like to die at home, with mother and father, brothers and sisters about me.”

“But you are not going to die just yet,” returned the doctor, with assumed gayety; “and home and mother will do wonders for you.”

“Dr. King,” and the blue eyes looked up calmly and steadily into the physician’s face, “please tell me exactly what you think of my case.  Is there any hope of recovery?”

“You may improve very much:  I think you will when you get home; and, though there is little hope of the entire recovery of your former health and strength, you may live for years.”

“But it is likely I shall not live another year? do not be afraid to say so:  I should rather welcome the news.  Am I not right?”

“Yes; I—­I think you are nearing home, my dear boy; the land where ’the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick.’”

There was genuine feeling in the doctor’s tone.

A moment’s silence, and Harold said, “Thank you.  It is what I have suspected for some time; and it causes me no regret, save for the sake of those who love me and will grieve over my early death.”