"Choose your own way; tell him or not; but if you love him, give
yourself to him. Whether or not you tell him, he will want you--as
I would--as any man would. . . . Now you must smile at me, Letty."
She turned toward him a face, pallid, enraptured, transfigured with
an inward radiance that left him silent--graver after that swift
glimpse of a soul exalted.
She said slowly: "You and Ailsa have been God's own messengers to
me. . . . I shall tell Dr. Benton. . . . If he still wishes it, I
will marry him. It will be for him to ask--after he knows all."
Celia entered, carrying the breakfast on a tray.
"Curt's Zouaves have stolen ev'y pig, but I found bacon and po'k in
the cellar," she said, smilingly. "Oh, dear! the flo' is in such a
mess of plaster! Will you sit on the aidge of the bed, Miss
Lynden, and he'p my cousin eat this hot co'n pone?"
So the napkin was spread over the sheets, and pillows tucked behind
Berkley; and Celia and Letty fed him, and Letty drank her coffee
and thankfully ate her bacon and corn pone, telling them both,
between bites, how it had been with her and with Ailsa since the
great retreat set in, swamping all hospitals with the sick and
wounded of an unbeaten but disheartened army, now doomed to
decimation by disease.
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