It was done at last; and after few directions the operators hurried off to do for others, what they had done for George. Poor George, how long and weary were the days and nights immediately succeeding the amputation, and how horrible the sensation which prompted him to fancy the severed limb was there; to feel the hot blood tingling through his finger tips, throbbing through his wrists, streaming into his elbow joints, and then to know ’twas all a mere delusion, for the right arm once so full of vigor, was nought now, save a putrifying mass buried away beneath the sod. He would not have Annie know it yet, he said. He would rather spare her as long as possible, and so the news was withheld from her, while day after day George waited and watched for the favorable change which should make it safe for him to undertake the tedious journey. Three times was the travelling-bag packed, with the hope of going to-morrow, and as often did the doctor’s stern mandate bid him wait a little longer. At last the terribly nervous sensation passed away, taking with it all the pain, and leaving no feeling save one of intense uneasiness and languor, which the once strong man strove in vain to shake off, trying day after day to sit up, if only for a moment, and as often falling back upon his pillows from sheer exhaustion. He was only tired; he had never been rested since the battle, he said, and if he could once go home to Annie, and lie upon the lounge, where he last saw her kneeling, he should get well so fast. Often in his troubled sleep he talked of her, begging her not to spurn her poor, crippled husband, but to love him just the same. “I never can work for you as I used to do,” he would say, “never can buy that cottage on the hill, but God won’t let us starve, and I shall love you so much, so much, when I find you do not shrink away from poor, mutilated George.”