He was burning with fever. His eyes swam in it as he looked at me. He could not eat when food was brought to him, but begged for water, and the surgeon allowed him what the women considered reckless quantities. Over stockades came the August rustle of the forest. Morning bird voices succeeded to the cannon's reverberations. The surgeon turned everybody out but me, and looked in by times from his hospital of British wounded. I wiped the boy's forehead and gave him his medicine, fanning him all day long. He lay in stupor, and the surgeon said he was going comfortably, and would suffer little. Once in awhile he turned up the corners of his mouth and smiled at me, as if the opiate gave him blessed sensations. I asked the surgeon what I should do in the night if he came out of it and wanted to talk. "Let him talk," said the doctor briefly. Unlike the night before, this was a night of silence. Everybody slept, but the sentinels, and the men whose wounds kept them awake; and I was both a sentinel, and a man whose wounds kept him awake. Paul's little hands were scratched; and there was a stone bruise on the heel he pushed from cover of the blankets. His small body, compact of so much manliness, was fine and sweet. Though he bore no resemblance to his mother, it seemed to me that she lay there for me to tend; and the change was no more an astounding miracle than the change of baby to boy. I had him all that night for my own, putting every other thought out of mind and absorbing his presence. His forehead and his face lost their burning heat with the coolness of dawn, which blew our shaded candle, flowing from miles of fragrant oaks. He awoke and looked all around the cabin. I tried to put his opiate into his mouth; but something restrained me. I held his hand to my cheek. "I like you," he spoke out. "Don't you think my mother is pretty?" I said I thought his mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. He curled up his mouth corners and gave me a blue-eyed smile. "My father is not pretty. But he is a gentleman of France." "Where are they, Paul?" He turned a look upon me without answering. "Paul," I said brutally, "tell me where your father and mother are." He was so far gone that my voice recalled him. He simply knew me as a voice and a presence that he liked. "With poor old Ernestine," he answered. "And where is poor old Ernestine?" He began to shake as if struck with a chill. I drew the blanket closer. "Paul, you must tell me!" He shook his head. His mouth worked, and his little breast went into convulsions. He shrieked and threw himself toward me. "My pretty little mother!" I held him still in a tight grip. "My darling--don't start your wound!"