The wonder was that her health did not fail.  People who saw her during that fearful summer, fresh and with color in her cheeks, marvelled.  Great-hearted Puss Russell, who came frequently to inquire, was quieted before her friend, and the frank and jesting tongue was silent in that presence.  Anne Brinsmade came with her father and wondered.  A miracle had changed Virginia.  Her poise, her gentleness, her dignity, were the effects which people saw.  Her force people felt.  And this is why we cannot of ourselves add one cubit to our stature.  It is God who changes, —­who cleanses us of our levity with the fire of trial.  Happy, thrice happy, those whom He chasteneth.  And yet how many are there who could not bear the fire—­who would cry out at the flame.

Little by little Clarence mended, until he came to sit out on the porch in the cool of the afternoon.  Then he would watch for hours the tassels stirring over the green fields of corn and the river running beyond, while the two women sat by.  At times, when Mrs. Colfax’s headaches came on, and Virginia was alone with him, he would talk of the war; sometimes of their childhood, of the mad pranks they played here at Bellegarde, of their friends.  Only when Virginia read to him the Northern account of the battles would he emerge from a calm sadness into excitement; and he clenched his fists and tried to rise when he heard of the capture of Jackson and the fall of Port Hudson.  Of love he spoke not a word, and now that he was better he ceased to hold her hand.  But often when she looked up from her book, she would surprise his dark eyes fixed upon her, and a look in them of but one interpretation.  She was troubled.

The Doctor came but every other day now, in the afternoon.  It was his custom to sit for a while on the porch chatting cheerily with Virginia, his stout frame filling the rocking-chair.  Dr. Polk’s indulgence was gossip—­though always of a harmless nature:  how Mr. Cluyme always managed to squirm over to the side which was in favor, and how Maude Catherwood’s love-letter to a certain dashing officer of the Confederate army had been captured and ruthlessly published in the hateful Democrat.  It was the Doctor who gave Virginia news of the Judge, and sometimes he would mention Mrs. Brice.  Then Clarence would raise his head; and once (she saw with trepidation) he had opened his lips to speak.

One day the Doctor came, and Virginia looked into his face and divined that he had something to tell her.  He sat but a few moments, and when he arose to go he took her hand.

“I have a favor to beg of you, Jinny,” he said, “Judge has lost his nurse.  Do you think Clarence could spare you for a little while every day?  I shouldn’t ask it,” Dr. Polk continued, somewhat hurriedly for him, “but the Judge cannot bear a stranger near him, and I am afraid to have him excited while in this condition.”

“Mrs. Brice is ill?” she cried.  And Clarence, watching, saw her color go.