“Yes; I have met him several times and like him very much.  He was our senator, and made that awful speech against slavery last winter.  He is a frank, manly, straightforward man.”

“How old is he?”

“Thirty-five, perhaps; why?”

“Nothing.  Is he married?”

“He is an old bachelor; but I heard some one joking him about a young lady, to whom it is said he is engaged.  Why do you inquire about him?”

“Oh!  I wanted to know something of the man with whom he is.  I met Mr. Ranney a year ago, you know.”

That night the fair girl remained long in a serious and thoughtful attitude.

* * * * *

In the afternoon of the next day, the ladies drove to Mrs. Ridgeley’s.  The elders embraced cordially.  One was thinking of the boy who had died, and of him who had gone so sadly away; the other of her agony at a supposed loss, and her great joy at the recovery.  Julia took one of Mrs. Ridgeley’s thin, toil-hardened hands in her two, rosy and dimpled, and kissed it, and shed tears over it.  Then they sat down, and Mrs. Markham, in her woman’s direct natural way, poured out the gratitude they both felt; Julia, with simple frankness, told the happenings of the night, and both were surprised to learn that Bart had told her so little.

Mrs. Ridgeley described his going out, and coming back next morning, and going again at evening.  It was his way, his mother said.  She was proud of Barton, and wondered that this sweet girl should not love him, and actually pitied her that she did not.  She would not betray his weakness; but when she came to speak of his final going, the forlorn figure of the depressed boy walking out into the darkness, alone, came before her, and she wept.  Then Julia knelt by her, and again taking her hand, said “Let me love you, while he is gone; I want to care for all that are dear to him;” and the poor mother thought that it was in part as a recompense for not loving Barton.  There was another thing that Julia came to say, and opening her satchel, she pointed to something red and coarse, and putting her hand on it, she said, “This was Bart’s.  He took it off himself, and put it on me; and went cold and exposed.  I did not think to restore it, and I want very much to keep it—­may I?” The poor mother raised her eyes to the warm face of the girl, yet saw nothing.  “Yes.”  And the pleased child replaced it and closed her satchel.

Then Mrs. Markham said their friends and neighbors were coming in on the Tuesday evening following, to congratulate them, and would Mrs. Ridgeley let them send for her?  The gathering would be informal and neighborly.  But Mrs. Ridgeley begged to be excused.  Julia wanted to see the boys, and they came in from the garden—­Ed shy, quiet and reserved; George, dashing, sparkling and bashful.  Julia went up and shook them by their brown hands, and acted as if she would kiss George if he did look very much like Bart.  She talked with them in her frank girl’s way, and took them captive, and then mother and daughter drove away.