An Original Belle Part 48

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

THE CURE OF CAPTAIN LANE.

A DAINTIER bouquet than usual was placed on Lane's table next morning, and the piece of chicken sent to his breakfast was broiled to the nicest turn of brown. The old colored cook was friendly to the "Link.u.m ossifer," and soon discovered that "Missy S'wanee" was not averse to a little extra painstaking.

After the surgeon had made his morning rounds the young girl visited the men also. She found them doing well, and left them doing better; for, in rallying the wounded, good cheer and hopefulness can scarcely be over-estimated.

As she was returning the surgeon met her, and said, "Captain Lane is already better for your first visit and impatient for another."

"Then he's both patient and impatient. A very contradictory and improper condition to remain in. I can read to him at once, after I have seen if mamma wishes anything."

"Please do; and with your permission I'll take a little walk, for I, too, am restless from inaction."

"I don't think it's nice for you to read alone with that officer,"

said Roberta.

"I see no impropriety at all," cried Suwanee. "Yours and mamma's rooms are but a few yards away, and you can listen to all we say if you wish. If your colonel was sick and wounded at the North wouldn't you like some woman to cheer him up?"

"No, not if she were as pretty as you are," replied Roberta, laughing.

"Nonsense," said Suwanee, flushing. "For all I know this captain is married and at the head of a large family.

"But I'm going to find out," she a.s.sured herself. "I shall investigate this new species of genus h.o.m.o who imagines me to be a saint. He wasn't long in proving that Northern men were not what I supposed.

Now I shall give him the harder task of proving me to be an angel;"

and she walked demurely in, leaving the door open for any espionage that her mother and sister might deem proper.

Lane's face lighted up the moment he saw her, and he said: "You have robbed this day of its weariness already. I've had agreeable antic.i.p.ations thus far, and I'm sure you will again leave pleasant memories."

"Then you are better?"

"Yes; thanks to you."

"You are given to compliments, as our Southern men are."

"I should be glad to equal them at anything in your estimation. But come, such honest enemies as we are should be as sincere as friends.

I have meant every word I have said to you. You are harboring me, an entire stranger, who presented my credentials at first very rudely. Now you can ask me any questions you choose. You have proved yourself to be such a genuine lady that I should be glad to have you think that I am a gentleman by birth and breeding."

"Oh, I was convinced of that before you put your sabre in its scabbard on the evening of your most unwelcome arrival, when you spoiled our supper-party. You have since been confirming first impressions. I must admit, however, that I scarcely 'reverence'

you yet, nor have I detected anything specially 'angelic.'"

"Your failure in these respects will be the least of my troubles.

I do not take back what I have said, however."

"Wait; perhaps you will. You are very slightly acquainted with me, sir."

"You are much less so with me, and can't imagine what an obstinate fellow I am."

"Oh, if I have to contend with obstinacy rather than judgment--"

"Please let us have no contentions whatever. I have often found that your Southern men out-matched me, and not for the world would I have a dispute with a woman of your mettle. I give you my parole to do all that you wish, as far as it is within my power, while I am helpless on your hands."

"And when I have helped to make you well you will go and fight against the South again?"

"Yes, Miss Barkdale," gravely, "and so would your officers against the North."

"Oh, I know it. I sha'n't put any poison in your coffee."

"Nor will you ever put poison in any man's life. The most delightful thing about you, Miss Barkdale," he continued, laughing, "is that you are so genuinely good and don't know it."

"Whatever happens," she said, almost irritably, "you must be cured of that impression. I won't be considered 'good' when I'm not.

Little you know about me, indeed! Good heavens, Captain Lane! what kind of women have you been accustomed to meet in the North? Would they put strychnine in a wounded Southerner's food, and give him heavy bread, more fatal than bullets, and read novels while dying men were at their very doors?"

"Heaven help them! I fear there are many women the world over who virtually do just those things."

"They are not in the South," she replied, hotly.

"They are evidently not in this house," he replied, smiling. "You ask what kind of women I am accustomed to meet. I will show you the shadow of one of my friends;" and he took from under his pillow a photograph of Marian.

"Oh, isn't she lovely!" exclaimed the girl.

"Yes, she is as beautiful as you are; she is as brave as you are, and I've seen you cheering on your friends when even in the excitement of the fight my heart was filled with dread lest you or your mother or sister might be shot. She is just as ardent for the North as you are for the South, and her influence has had much place in the motives of many who are now in the Union army. If wounded Confederates were about her door you could only equal--you could not surpa.s.s--her in womanly kindness and sympathy. The same would be true of my mother and sisters, and millions of others. I know what you think of us at the North, but you will have to revise your opinions some day."

Her face was flushed, a frown was upon her brow, a doubtful smile upon her lips, and her whole manner betokened her intense interest.

"You evidently are seeking to revise them," she said, with a short laugh, "much as you charged our cavalry the other evening. I think you are a dangerous man to the South, Captain Lane, and I don't know whether I should let you get well or not."

He reached out his hand and took hers, as he said, laughingly: "I should trust you just the same, even though Jeff Davis and the whole Confederate Congress ordered you to make away with me."

"Don't you call our President 'Jeff,'" she snapped, but did not withdraw her hand.

"I beg your pardon. That was just as rude in me as if you had called Mr. Lincoln 'Abe.'"

She now burst out laughing. "Heaven knows we do it often enough,"

she said.

"I was aware of that."

"This won't do at all," she resumed. "Your hand is growing a little feverish, and if my visits do not make you better I shall not come. I think we have defined our differences sufficiently. You must not 'reverence' me any more. I couldn't stand that at all. I will concede at once that you are a gentleman, and that this lovely girl is my equal; and when our soldiers have whipped your armies, and we are free, I shall be magnanimous, and invite you to bring this girl here to visit us on your wedding trip. What is her name?"

"Marian Vosburgh. But I fear she will never take a wedding trip with me. If she did I would accept your invitation gratefully after we had convinced the South that one flag must protect us all."

"We won't talk any more about that. Why won't Miss Vosburgh take a wedding trip with you?"

"For the best of reasons,--she doesn't love me well enough."