d submissively, and indeed, at the time, my brain
seemed so weary that I had no wish to know more.

She gently took her hand from mine and went to a table, where she poured
something from a bottle into a glass. I followed her with my eyes, noting
how strong and confident and beautiful she was.

"Drink this, Tom," she said, bringing the glass back to the bed and
holding it to my lips. I gulped it down obediently, and then watched
her again as she went to the window and drew the blind. She came back
in a moment and sat down in the chair from which I had startled Sam.
She picked up the fan which he had dropped, and waved it softly to and
fro above me, smiling gently down into my face. And as I lay there
watching her, the present seemed to slip away and leave me floating in
a land of clouds.

But when I opened my eyes again, it all came back to me in an instant,
and I called aloud for Dorothy. She was bending over me almost before the
sound of my voice had died away.

"Oh, thank God!" I cried. "It was only a dream, then! You are safe,
Dorothy,--there were no Indians,--tell me it was only a dream."

"Yes, I am quite safe, Tom," she answered, and took my hand in
both of hers.

"And the Indians?" I asked.

"Were frightened away by Colonel Washington and his men, who killed
many of them."

I closed my eyes for a moment, and tried to reconstruct the drama of
that dreadful night.

"Dorothy," I asked suddenly, "was Brightson killed?"

"Yes, Tom," she answered softly.

I sighed.

"He was a brave man," I said. "No man could have been braver."

"Only one, I think," and she smiled down at me tremulously, her eyes
full of tears.

"Yes, Colonel Washington," I said, after a moment's thought. "Perhaps he
is braver."

"I was not thinking of Colonel Washington, Tom," and her lips began
to tremble.

I gazed at her a moment in amazement.

"You do not mean me, Dorothy?" I cried. "Oh, no; I am not brave. You do
not know how frightened I grow when the bullets whistle around me."

She laid her fingers on my lips with the prettiest motion in the world.

"Hush," she said. "I will not listen to such blasphemy."

"At least," I protested, "I am not so brave as you,--no, nor as your
mother, Dorothy. I had no thought that she was such a gallant woman."

"Ah, you do not know my mother!" she cried. "But you shall know her some
day, Tom. Nor has she known you, though I think she is beginning to know
you better, now."

There we