concentrated, the
shoulders had rounded; the coarse blue shirt and heavy boots were dusty
with the morning's toil, and the heat and labour of the day had left
their tokens, but the brow was as open, the mouth as ingenuous as ever,
the complexion had regained a hue of health, and the air of alacrity
and exhilaration surprised as much as it gratified the visitor.

'What is your work?' he asked.

'Filling barrows with stones, and wheeling them to the trucks for the
breakwater,' answered Leonard, in a tone like satisfaction. 'But pray,
if you are so kind, tell me,' he continued, with anxiety that he could
not suppress, 'what is this about war in America?'

'Not near Indiana; no fear of that, I trust. But how did you know,
Leonard?'

'I saw, for one moment at a time, in great letters on a placard of the
contents of newspapers, at the stations as we came down here, the
words, 'Civil War in America;' and it has seemed to be in the air here
ever since. But Averil has said nothing in her letters. Will it
affect them?'

The Doctor gave a brief sketch of what was passing, up to the battle of
Bull Run; and his words were listened to with such exceeding avidity,
that he was obliged to spend more minutes than he desired on the
chances of the war, and the Massissauga tidings, which he wished to
make sound more favourable than he could in conscience feel that they
were; but when at last he had detailed all he knew from Averil's
letters, and it had been drunk in with glistening eyes, and manner
growing constantly less constrained, he led back to Leonard himself:
'Ethel will write at once to your sister when I get home; and I think I
may tell her the work agrees with you.'

'Yes; and this is man's work; and it is for the defences,' he added,
with a sparkle of the eye.

'Very hard and rough,' returned the Doctor, looking again at the
wounded hands and hard-worked air.

'Oh, but to put out one's strength again, and have room!' cried the
boy, eagerly.

'Was it not rather a trying change at first?'

'To be sure I was stiff, and didn't know how to move in the morning,
but that went off fast enough; and I fill as many barrows a day as any
one in our gang.'

'Then I may tell your sister you rejoice in the change?'

'Why, it's work one does not get deadly sick of, as if there was no
making one's self do it,' said Leonard, eagerly; 'it is work! and
besides, here is sunshine and sea. I can get a sight of that every
day; and