Sitting in the little cottage, stroking Joseph’s hands, suddenly he heard voices coming--the shy little laugh of Battle Jimmie and, running through Jimmie’s chatter like a silver thread, a voice which startled him--a familiar voice he could not place, but which seemed rich with a peculiar magic that attaches itself to the beloved. Softly laying Joseph’s hands back on the cot, he tiptoed to the door and saw--Jimmie and Mrs. Sessions, his dream-lady of the lavender-scented attic! And his greeting to her might have been the shy effusiveness of a boy lover of eighteen. “Why--it isn’t you, is it? I told him to ask for you, but I didn’t dare to hope--And it’s really _you_!” “Guess it is!” chuckled the old lady delicately. “I--somehow--” She blushed and hesitated. Then she frowned--oh, such a portentous frown!--as she suddenly remembered that she was a nurse in the service of U. S. A., and said severely: “Who’s the patient?” “It’s--my--son,” faltered Dad. “Oh, my _dear_! Has he--bullied you again as he used to?” she said, with the quick, familiar affection of two who have gone through the same trials together. “No, ma’am; he’s never done that, I shouldn’t say. But somehow we do seem a little nearer together now.” “Let me take a look at him.” As she entered the cottage the dusty, mildewed air seemed to shiver with a crisp and delicate fragrance of lavender. And as her nimble, slender fingers, with their one ring--a worn, thin band of chased gold--passed softly over Joseph’s brow, the room seemed to change from a battle hospital to a home of mother love. “He’s doing fine,” she smiled. “Did _you_ put on those bandages?” “Yessum!” mumbled Captain Dadd, again shy and anxiously wondering if he by chance had been so fortunate as to put them on properly. “Needn’t be so frightened, child,” she laughed. “They’re very nice--very nice, indeed. All I’ll need to do will be to watch him and change them in an hour or two.” Then she stopped, and blushed again, and fidgeted with the pillow. On the opposite side of the cot Dad fidgeted with his collar and looked embarrassed and wished he could think of something to say. While the superior Private Joseph Brinton said nothing at all, Jimmie stared with wonder at the sudden silence that had come upon his beloved Dad and the dear lady of the rosy cheeks. “Uh!” said Dad, who really believed that he was going to say something sound and valuable about the weather. But, as it occurred to him that, on the whole, it was rather foolish to talk about the weather in a day of battles and sudden death, he didn’t get beyond the “Uh--” only, stopped and looked slightly foolish. “Yes?” said Mrs. Sessions wistfully, glancing involuntarily at the door.