'I knew it!' she said.

He saw it was safer to quit this subject, and asked for Henry.

'He sent his love. He met us at New York. He is grown so soldierly,
with such a black beard, that he is more grown out of knowledge than
any of us, but I scarcely saw him, for he was quite overset at my
appearance, and Tom thought it did me harm. I wish our new sister
would have come to see me.

'Sister!'

'Oh, did you not know? I thought Tom had written! She is a Virginian
lady, whose first husband was a doctor, who died of camp-fever early in
the war. A Federal, of course. And they are to be married as soon as
Charleston has fallen.'

Leonard smiled. And Averil expressed her certainty that it had fallen
by that time.

'And he is quite Americanized?' asked Leonard. 'Does he return to our
own name! No? Then I do not wonder he did not wish for me. Perhaps he
may yet bear to meet me, some day when we are grown old.'

'At least we can pray to be altogether, where one is gone already' said
Averil. 'That was the one comfort in parting with the dear Cora--my
blessing through all the worst! Leonard, she would not go to live in
the fine house her father has taken at New York, but she is gone to be
one of the nurses in the midst of all the hospital miseries. And, oh,
what comfort she will carry with her!'

Here Tom returned, but made no objection to her brother's stay,
perceiving that his aspect and voice were like fulness to the hungry
heart that had pined so long--but keeping all the others away; and they
meanwhile were much entertained by Ella, who was in joyous spirits; a
little subdued, indeed, by the unknown brother, but in his absence very
communicative. Gertrude was greatly amused with her account of the
marriage, in the sitting-room at Massissauga, and of Tom's being so
unprepared for the brevity of the American form, that he never knew
where he was in the Service, and completed it with a puzzled 'Is that
all?'

Averil had, according to Ella, been infinitely more calm and composed.
'She does nothing but watch his eyes,' said Ella; 'and ever since we
parted from Cora, I have had no one to speak to! In the cabin he never
stirred from sitting by her; and if she could speak at all, it was so
low that I could not hear. School will be quite lively.'

'Are you going to school?'

'Oh yes! where Ave was. That is quite fixed; and I have had enough of
playing third person,' said Ella, with her precocious Western