On the evening that Eugene left Boston, Mrs. Hardy had received a telegram announcing the serious illness of her aunt; and accompanied by her husband she had at once left her home to go and see her. They were away a day and two nights, and early on the morning of the next day they returned home.

They were a very quiet couple as they drew near the cottage. “It seems as if we had been to a funeral,” said the sergeant lugubriously, “though it looks now as if your aunt might get well. I wish that you had never seen that boy, Bess. We have got to miss him tremendously about the house.”

“I believe you feel worse about his going away than I do,” said Mrs. Hardy. “I know, I just know, Stephen, that he will come back. He isn’t fitted for that narrow French life,[Pg 214] and you know he has been brought up to despise priests. Now, if he had been going to a city like this, or to any one that liked him”—

“Oh! he’ll get used to it,” said the sergeant, “and boys forget.”

“Some boys do—Eugene won’t,” said Mrs. Hardy. “I know him better than you do, Stephen.”

While they were talking, their cab stopped in front of their own door. The sergeant got out first, and taking a key from his pocket he inserted it in the lock. After he had swung open the door, and let his wife pass in, he sauntered around the garden, carrying on a half-growling soliloquy with himself. He was slightly out of temper, and he did not know what he wanted.

The clouds of the night had all blown away, and the morning was bright and cheerful. The frost that for some days had held the garden-beds in its grasp had relaxed, and they were now soft and muddy.

“Hello,” said the sergeant, suddenly pausing in his walk, “some young rascal has been[Pg 215] tramping over this marigold-bed by Eugene’s window—just about the size of his foot too. Why, what’s that?” and he wrinkled his eyebrows as his eyes fell on the blood-stains on the sill. “There’s something wrong here. I’ll investigate. If I’m not a bad guesser some one has been getting in this window. I told Bess she ought not to leave it open; but she would do it, and she didn’t expect the boy to come back either. Just a woman’s foolishness.”

He strode quietly up to the window, and tried to look in. The blind was down so he could not do it; therefore he put his hands on the sash, and softly raised it.

More softly than he had raised it he put it down, and his amazed and discontented expression vanished instantaneously. His lips formed themselves into an exclamation of surprise; and uttering a long, low whistle, he nimbly picked his way over the muddy paths back to the front of the house.

“Hello, Bess dear,” he said, saluting her with an affectionate tap on the shoulder as she[Pg 216] whisked into view with a duster in her hand, “you’re the prettiest woman I ever saw.”

“Stephen, are you crazy?” she said rather pettishly; “and why didn’t you wipe your feet? You are tracking up my clean hall.”

“You’re out of sorts, Bess; you find the house lonely without the boy.”

She hung her head without speaking. She had started out with the intention of bearing her loss bravely while it should last, and she was not yet willing to give in.

“I’m hungry,” said the sergeant unexpectedly; “can’t I have some more breakfast?”

In a trice her white head was held up again. “Why, Stephen, you had your breakfast at the railway station.”

“Well, suppose I did—can’t I have some more?”

“Oh! certainly, if you wish it,” she returned, eyeing him in a kind of uneasy surprise; “but you ate so much.”

“It’s pretty hard if a man can’t have all he wants to eat in his own house,” said the sergeant, and then he began to sing,—

[Pg 217]
“I can’t get ’em up,
I can’t get ’em up.
I can’t get ’em up in the morning.
I can’t get ’em up,
I can’t get ’em up,
I can’t get ’em up at all.”

Mrs. Hardy stared at him. She did not in the least understand this sudden jocularity of mood.

The sergeant, nothing daunted by her expression, allowed his spirits to rise higher and higher, and continued,—
“The captain’s worse than the sergeant;
The sergeant’s worse than the corp’ral;
The corp’ral’s worse than the private;
But the major’s the worst of all.”

“Stephen,” said Mrs. Hardy tearfully, “I don’t think it’s kind of you to sing that.”

“Why not, my dear? why not?”

“Because—you know why.”

“Because I used to sing it every morning when the boy was here. Well, I just want to remind you of him, to keep you from forgetting, as it were. You think he is coming back, don’t you?”

“Ye-e-s,” and she reluctantly uttered the[Pg 218] word; “but, O Stephen! I don’t want to wait.”

“It isn’t necessary. You sha’n’t wait,” vociferated the sergeant, roaming about the room.

Mrs. Hardy was just about to lose her composure, and throw herself miserably into a chair; but at his words a puzzled, almost fearful, expression came over her face, and in tremulous haste she hurried to the pantry, and busied herself in preparing the extra meal that he had demanded.

“His grandfather died in a lunatic asylum,” she murmured, as her shaking hand dropped tea instead of coffee into the coffee-pot. “Is it possible that his mind is getting affected? He sha’n’t be worried into it, anyway,” she went on, bravely dashing aside a tear; and her fingers fairly flew, as she cut slices of cold meat and buttered some rolls. “He shall have what he wants.”

In a very few minutes the sergeant was bidden to seat himself before his second breakfast. “Now call the boy,” he exclaimed, “as you always do before we get seated.”

[Pg 219]

“My dear husband, let us not refer to him,” said Mrs. Hardy very slowly and soothingly; “don’t you know he is not here?”

“Let’s go through the form, anyway,” said the sergeant, smiting the table until the dishes rattled. “Let’s go through with it for the sake of old times and the times that are to come;” and leaping up he took her hand in his, and jogged merrily down the hall.

“I’ll go with you, Stephen,” said his wife, with quiet yet increasing uneasiness; “but don’t hurry, there’s plenty of time.”

“Yes, there’s plenty of time,” whispered her husband, and to her further anxiety he became mysterious and subdued; “hush, now, if he was here we might wake him;” and he tiptoed cautiously into the roo............