He was just now in one of his best conditions and was clearly enjoying
the pipe he used but rarely. Ann at his feet on the porch-step read aloud
to him with indifference to all but the man she now and then looked up to
with the loving tenderness his brief betterment fed with illusory hope.
"What's that, Ann?" he exclaimed; "Grant at Chattanooga! That's John's
ideal General. Didn't he write about him at--where was it? Oh! Belmont."
"Yes, after Belmont, James."
"When does Mark Rivers go back?"
"To-morrow. He is always so out of spirits here that I am really relieved
when he returns to the Sanitary Commission." He made no reply, and she
continued her reading.
"Isn't that Leila with Rivers, Ann?"
"Yes. He likes to walk with her."
"So would any man." A faint smile--very rare of late--showed in her
pleased upward look at the face--the changed face--she loved.
The pair of whom they spoke were lost to view in the forest.
"And you are glad to go?" said Leila to Rivers.
"Yes, I am. I can hardly say glad, but now that your uncle is, so to
speak, lost to me and your aunt absorbed in her one task and the duties
she has taken up again, our pleasant Dante lessons are set aside, and
what is there left of the old intellectual life which is gone--gone?"
"But," said Leila gaily, "you have the church and my humble society.
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