Claib had brought two letters from the office, one for Mrs. Worthington
from Hugh, and one for Alice from Irving Stanley. This last had been
long delayed, and as she broke the seal a little nervously, reading that
his trip to Europe had been deferred on account of the illness of his
sister's governess, but that he was going on board the ship that day,
July tenth, and that his sister was there with him and the governess, "A
modest, sweet-faced body," he wrote, "who looks very girl-like from the
fact that her soft, brown hair is worn short in her neck."
Alice had a tolerably clear insight into Irving Stanley's character, and
immediately her mind conjured up visions of what might be the result of
a sea voyage and months of intimate companionship with that sweet-faced
governess, "who wore her soft, brown hair short in her neck."
"I hope it may be so," she thought; and folding up her letter, she was
about going out to the rustic seat beneath a tall maple where Mug sat,
whispering over the primer she was trying so hard to read, when a cry
from Mrs. Worthington arrested her attention and brought her at once to
the side of the half-fainting woman.
"What is it?" Alice asked, in much alarm, and Mrs. Worthington replied:
"Oh, Hugh, Hugh, my boy! he's enlisted, joined the army! I shall never
see him again!"
Could Hugh have seen Alice then he would not for a moment have doubted
the nature of her feelings toward himself. She did not cry out, nor
faint, but her face turned white as the dress she wore, while her hands
pressed so tightly together, that her long, taper nails left the impress
in her flesh.
"God keep him from danger and death," she murmured; then, winding her
arms around the stricken mother, she wiped her tears away; and to her
moaning cry that she was left alone, replied: "Let me be your child till
he returns, or, if he never does--"
She could get no further, for the very idea was overwhelming, and
sinking down beside Hugh's mother, she laid her head on her lap, and
wept bitterly. Alas, that scenes like this should be so common in our
once happy land, but so it is. Mothers start with terror and grow faint
over the boy just enlisted for the war; then follow him with prayers
and yearning love to the distant battlefield; then wait and watch for
tidings from him; and then too often read with streaming eyes and hearts
swelling with agony, the fatal message which says their boy is dead.
It was a sad day at Spring Bank when first the news of Hugh's enlistment
came, sadder even than when 'Lina died, for Hugh seemed as really dead
as if they all had heard the hissing shell or whizzing ball which was to
bear his young life away. It was nearly two months since he left home,
and he could find no trace of Adah, though searching faithfully for her,
in conjunction with Murdock and Dr. Richards, both of whom had joined
him in New York.