“Still, there must surely be a risk in hiding me here. You said those men would come back. And if they do--” “If they do,” she finished, “I’ll have to ask the recording angel to blot out some of the fibs I’ll tell them. Risk? There’s no risk. They aren’t likely to search the house. Not upstairs, anyhow. The servants won’t know anything, and I don’t believe anyone will search the magnolia thicket to see if there’s a horse tethered there. “Just you rest easy. There’s no risk--either for you or for me.” “I can’t thank you,” he faltered. “I haven’t words to. But I think you know how grateful I am.” “Grateful for what? For not letting you ride on until you ran into some picket-party down the road? Nonsense! There’s nothing to be grateful about. “When I saw you streaking past my house, wounded, on that fine big horse of yours, I knew well enough no Yankee soldier would be choosing these parts to take a pleasure ride in, I knew by the way you rode there must be someone after you. So what was there to do but ask you in?” “I--I thought you Southern ladies hated all Yankees like poison. I hardly expected--” “Southern ladies? _Me?_ Dear man, southern Massachusetts is the farthest south _I_ was born. Born and bred there. In South Wilbr’am, ten miles out of Springfield. Do I talk Southern?” “No. I--that is why I wondered--” “We came South here, to Virginia, ten years ago. My husband--he was Captain Ehud Sessions--captain in the Mexican War, you know--his health failed him, and Dr. Ballard said he’d best go South to live. So we sold out in Wilbr’am and came down here. We and our daughter. She’s married now and living out in New York City. “A couple of years later Ehud died. It didn’t seem to do him any good down here, and all the time he kept peaking for the Wilbr’am mountains. After he died I kept on running the place here. Because it was less lonely here than it would have been back home without Ehud. “I’ve been doing it now for eight years. All alone. Except the servants. But a body that’s busy hasn’t much time for pining. So--Have I fastened that bandage too tight?” “No. It is perfect. You are a wonderful nurse.” “Ehud always said so,” she answered, highly gratified at the praise. “He knew a lot about doctoring and nursing. Picked it up in the Mexican War. And he taught it to me. I’ve thought sometimes, if this war keeps up, maybe I’ll close the place here and run up to Washington and volunteer as a nurse. They say they’re needed badly sometimes after battle; and there aren’t any too many of them.” “You would put a premium on recklessness. Every man would be trying to get sick or step in the way of a bullet.” “Now isn’t that a real pretty speech!” she cried, flushing delicately. “And a woman fifty years old her last birthday, too.” “Madam,” said Dad, right gallantly, “I beg you won’t tax my credulity by saying you are a day over thirty.”