"I am well - you are mistaken, Dr. Sandford," I made myself say quietly.
"For which side are you so anxious?" he inquired. "You are paler than you ought to be, at this moment, with a smile on your lips. I got this for you - will you scorn it, or value it?"
"You would not waste it upon me, if you thought I would scorn it?" I said.
"I don't know. I am not infatuated about anybody. You may have the bouquet, Daisy. Will you have it?"
I did not want to have it! I was not amusing myself, as many and as Mrs. Sandford were doing; this was not an interesting little bit of greens to me, but a handful of pain. I held it, as one holds such handfuls; till the regiment, which had halted a little while at Willard's, was ordered forward and took the turning from Pennsylvania Avenue into the road leading to Virginia. With that, the whole regiment burst into song; I do not know what; a deep-voiced grave melody from a thousand throats, cheering their advance into the quarter of the enemy and of actual warfare. I forgot Dr. Sandford then, whose watchful eyes I generally remembered; I ceased to see the houses or the people before me; for my eyes grew dim with tears it was impossible to keep back; and I listened to nothing but that mellow, ominous, sweet, bitter, strain, till the sound faded away in the distance. Then I found that my cheeks were wet, and that Mrs. Sandford was wondering.
"This is what it is to have an ear for music!" she said. "There is positively no possession which does not bring some inconvenience on the possessor. My dear Daisy, you are in pain; those were not tears of joy; what did that chant say to your sensibilities? To mine it only sounded strength, and victory. If the arms of those -whatare they? - that regiment, - if their arms are only constituted proportionately to their throats, they must do good fighting. I should think nothing would stand before them. Daisy, they will certainly bear down all opposition. Are you afraid? Here is the Fourth, and Washington safe yet, for all the Southern bluster."
"I do not think you had better try to go to the Capitol," the doctor put in.
"What, to see the meeting of Congress? Oh, yes, we will. I am not going to miss it."
"Daisy will not?" he asked.
But Daisy would. I would try every chance. I did not at the moment care for Congress; my wish was to find Mr. Thorold. At the review I knew I had little reason to hope for what I wanted; at the Capitol - after all, what chance there? when Mr. Thorold was drilling troops from morning till night; unless he had been already sent out of Washington. But I would go. If I had dared, I would have expressed a desire to see some troops drilled. I did not dare.
I remember nothing of the scene at the Capitol, except the sea of heads, the crowd, and the heat; my intense scrutiny of the crowd, and the weariness that grew on me. Mrs. Sandford had friends to talk to; I only wished I need not speak to anybody. It was a weary day; for I could not see Mr. Thorold, and I could not hear the President's Message. I was so placed or so surrounded that it came to me only in bits. Wearily we went home.
At least, Dr. Sandford and I. Mrs. Sandford tried in vain to rally us.
"There is to be a marriage in camp," she said. "What do you think of that, Daisy? We can have invitations, we like. Shall we like? Wouldn't it be a curious scene? Daisy is interested, I see. Grant, no. What is the matter, Grant?"
"I hope, nothing," said the doctor.
"Will you go, if I get you an invitation?"
"Who is to be married?"
"La fille du régiment."
"It takes two," said the doctor.
"Oh! The other is a sergeant, I believe; some sergeant of the same regiment. They are to be married to-morrow evening; and it is to be by moonlight and torchlight, and everything odd; up on that beautiful hill where we were the other day, where the trees and the tents make such a pretty mingling with red caps and everything else."
"I hope the ceremony will be performed by comet light, too," said Dr. Sandford. "It ought, to be in character."
"You do not feel well to-night, Grant?"
"Tired. So is Daisy. Are you tired of Washington, Daisy?"
"Oh - no!" I said eagerly. "Not at all. I like very much to be here."
"Then we will go and see the sergeant's wedding," said he.
But we did not; for the next day it was found to be only too true that Dr. Sandford was unwell. Perhaps he had been working too hard; at any rate, he was obliged to confess to being ill; and a day or two more settled the question of the amount of his indisposition. He had a low fever, and was obliged to give up to it.
Mrs Sandford devoted herself to the doctor. Of course, a sudden stop was put to our gay amusements. I could not ride or drive out any more; nor would I go to entertainments anywhere. The stir and the rush of the world had quietly dropped me out of it.
Yet I was more than ever eager to be in it and know what was doing; and above all, what one was doing. I studied the newspapers, more assiduously than I had hitherto had time for. They excited me almost unbearably with the desire to know more than they told, and with unnumbered fears and anxieties. I took to walking, to wear away part of the restless uneasiness which had settled upon me. I walked in the morning; I walked at evening, when the sun's light was off the avenue and the air a little cooler; and kept myself out of the house as much as I could.
It was so that I came upon my object, when I was not seeking it. One evening I was walking up Pennsylvania avenue; slowly, for the evening was warm, although the sun had gone down. Slowly and disconsolately. My heart began to fail me. I pondered writing a word to Mr. Thorold, now that I was completely at liberty; and I wished I had done it at once upon Dr. Sandford's becoming ill. Two or three days' time had been lost. I should have to take the note to the post-office myself; but that would not be impossible now, as it had been until now. While I was thinking these things, I saw a horseman riding down the avenue; a single horseman, coming at a fast gallop. I had never seen Mr. Thorold on horseback; yet from almost the first sight of this mounted figure my heart said with a bound who it was. I stood still by the curbstone, looking breathlessly. I felt more and more sure as he drew nearer, if that can be when I had been sure all along; but, would he know me? Would he even see me, in the first place? So many ladies walk on Pennsylvania avenue; why should his eye pick me out? and he was riding so fast too, there would be but one instant to see or miss me. I would not like to go again through the suspense of that minute, though it was almost too intense to be conscious pain. I stood, all eyes, while that figure came on, steady, swift, and moveless, but for the quick action of the horse's muscles. I dared not make a sign, although I felt morally sure who it was, until he was quite close to me; then, I do not know whether I made it or not. I think not; but the horse wheeled, just as he was past me; I did not know a horse could wheel so short; and the rider had dismounted at the same instant it seemed, for he was there, at my side, and my hand in his. I certainly forgot at that minute all I had stored up to say to Mr. Thorold, in the one great throb of joy. He did not promise to be easily managed, either.
"Daisy!" was his first question - "Daisy, where have you been?"
"I have been here - a while."
"I heard it from Aunt Catherine yesterday - I should have found you before another day went over - Daisy, how long?"
I hardly liked to tell him, he looked so eager and so imperative, and so much as if he had a right to know, and to have known. But he did not wait for the answer; and instead, drawing my arm within his own, bent down to me with looks and words so glad, so tender, so bright, that I trembled with a new feeling, and all the blood in my heart came surging up to my face and away again. The bridle was over his other arm, and the horse with drooped head walked on the other side of him, while Mr. Thorold led me on in this fashion. I do not know how far. I do not know what he said or what I answered, except in bits. I know that he made me answer him. I was not capable of the least self-assertion. What startled me at last out of this abstraction, was the sudden fear that we might be observed. I looked up and said something about it. Only to my confusion; for Thorold laughed at me, softly, but how he laughed - at me. I tried a diversion.
"Have you been drilling troops to-day?"
"All day; or I should have come to find and scold you. By the way, how longhaveyou been in Washington, Daisy?"
"I should not have thought you would ride such a pace at the end of a day's work - you did not ride like a tired man."
"I am not a tired man. Didn't I tell you, I had a letter from Aunt Catherine yesterday. I have felt no fatigue since. When did you come here, Daisy?"
"Christian, I could not let you know, for I was with my guardian - he is a sort of guardian for the time - and -"
"Well? I know your guardian. Dr. Sandford, isn't he"
"Yes, but he would not like to see you."
"I don't care whether he likes it or not, Daisy."
"Yes, but, you see, Christian, it would be not pleasant if he were to carry me off away from Washington; as he took me from West Point last year."
"To get you away from me?"
"He would, if he suspected anything."
"Daisy, I do not like suspicions. The best way is to let him know the truth."
"Oh, no, Christian!"
"Why not, little one?"
"I would rather my father and mother heard it first from you in person," I answered, stumbling in my speech.
"So would I, Daisy; but the times are against us. A letter must be my messenger; and Dr. Sandford has nothing to do with the matter."
"He would think he had," I answered, feeling the difficulties in my way.
"Aren't you my Daisy?" he said, looking down into my face with his flashing eyes, all alight with fire and pleasure.
"But that -" I began.
"No evasions, Daisy. Answer. Aren't you mine?"
I said "yes" meekly. But what other words I had purposed to add were simply taken off my lips. I looked round, in scared fashion, to see who was near; but Thorold laughed softly again.
"It is too dark for people to make minute investigations,Daisy."
"Dark!" said I. "Oh, Christian, I must go home. I shall be missed, and Mrs. Sandford will be frightened."
"Will the doctor come after you?"
"Oh, no, he is sick; but Christian, I must go home."
He turned and went with me, changing his tone, and making a variety of tender inquiries about my situation and my doings. They were something new; they were so tender of me, so thoughtful of my welfare, so protecting in their inquisitive care; and moreover they were the inquiries of one who had a right to know all about me. Something entirely new to my experience; my mother's care was never so sympathetic; my father's never so fond; even my guardian's was never so strict. Dr. Sandford to be sure had no right to make his care like this. I did not know that Mr. Thorold had; but I found it was indisputable. And in proportion it was delightful. We had a slow, very busy walk and talk until within a few doors of my Washington home; there we parted, with a long hand clasp, and the promise on my part that Mr. Thorold should find me at the same hour and place as to-day on the next evening.
Nobody was looking for me, and I gained my room in safety. I was very happy, yet not all happy; for the first use I made of my solitude, after getting rid of my bonnet and mantilla, was to sit down and cry. I asked myself the reason, for I did not like to be in the dark about my own feelings; this time they were in a good deal of confusion.
As I look back, I think the uppermost thing was my happiness; this new, delicate, strange joy which had come into my life and which I had never tasted so fully or known the flavour of it so intimately as this evening. Looks and tones, and little nameless things of manner telling almost more yet, came back to me in a small crowd and overwhelmed me with their testimony. Affection, and tenderness, and pleasure; and something apart from these, an inexplicable assuming of me and delight in me as so assumed; they found me or made me very weak to-night. What was the matter? I believe it was, first, this happiness; and next, the doubt that rested over it and the certainty that I must leave it. Certainly my weeping was hearty enough to answer to all three causes. It was a very unaccustomed indulgence to me; or not an indulgence at all, for I was not fond of tears; but it did act as a relief. I washed away some of my trouble in my tears; the happiness sprung to the surface; and then I could almost weep for joy and thankfulness that I was so happy. Even if the grounds of my happiness were precarious, I had trusted God all my life with all I cared for; could I not trust Him still? My tears stopped; and I believe one or two smiles could not be checked as I remembered some look or word of Mr. Thorold's.
I was to see him the next evening; and it would behove me to lose no time in telling him all the various matters I had wished him to understand. It seemed to me there was something to reconsider in my proposed communications. I had to tell him that our correspondence must be stopped. Would he agree to that? I had thought he would agree, and must, to anything I desired. To-night assured me that he had a will in the matter too, and that his will was strong. Further, it assured me that he had a right; and knew it. Yet it was impossible that we should write to each other without my parents' leave; and impossible that we should gain the leave. Mr. Thorold would have to see the matter as I looked at it; but a doubt came over me that to make him do so might prove difficult. That was one thing. Then about my not being an heiress. I suddenly found a great dislike in myself to speak to him on the subject. There was no doubt that it would be right to tell him what I had thought to tell him; wrong not to do it; the right and the wrong were settled; my willingness was not. A little inner consciousness that Mr. Thorold would relish any handling of the matter that savoured of the practical, and would improve it for his own ends, made my cheek hot. Yet I must tell him. The thing stood, with only an addition of disagreeableness. And what chance should I have, in the street?
I meditated a good while, before there suddenly started into my mind a third subject upon which I had meant to take action with Mr. Thorold. I had thought to qualify a little the liberty he had assumed upon our first betrothal; to keep at a somewhat more reserved distance, and make him. Could I? Was Mr. Thorold under my management? He seemed to take me under his. I pondered, but between laughing and rebellion I could make nothing of the subject. Only, I resolved, if circumstances gave me any chance, to act on my proposed system.
The next day was swallowed up in like thoughts. I tried to arrange my subjects and fix upon one to begin with; but it was a vain effort. I knew that as soon as I began to get ready for my walk. Things must come as they would. And my cross tides of purpose resolved themselves into one long swell of joy, when I discerned the figure I was looking for, waiting for me on Pennsylvania avenue; too soon, for it was near the place where we parted the night before.
"This is very dangerous -" I said, as we began to stroll up the avenue.
"What?" said Mr. Thorold, looking down at me with his eyes as full of mischief as ever.
"It is so light yet, and you come so near the house."
"You walk with other people, don't you?"
"I am not afraid of the other people."
"Are you afraid of me?" said he smiling; and then growing grave, "We may have only a few times, Daisy; let us make the most of them."
How could I start anything after that. I was mute; and Mr.Thorold began upon a new theme.
"Daisy, how long have you been in Washington?"
"Christian, Icouldnot let you know. I was always hoping to see you somewhere."
"Sounds as if you felt guilty," he said. "Confess, Daisy; you look as if you were afraid I would be angry. I will not be very hard with you."
I was afraid; and he was angry, when I told him. His face flushed and his eye changed, and turned away from me.
"Christian," I said, "I was very unwilling that Dr. Sandford should know anything about it; that was my reason. If I had written to you, you know you would have come straight to where I was; and the risk was too great."
"What risk?" he said. "I might have been ordered away fromWashington; and then we might never have met."
"Are you vexed?" I said gently.
"You have wronged me, Daisy."
It gave me, I do not know whether more pain or pleasure, the serious grave displeasure his manner testified. Neither pain nor pleasure was very easy to express; but pain pressed the hardest.
"I have been looking for the chance of seeing you; looking the whole time," I said. "Everywhere, it was the one thing I was intent upon."
"Daisy, it might have been lost altogether. And how many days have been lost!"
I was silent now; and we walked some steps together without anything more. But the next words were with a return to his usual clear voice.
"Daisy, you must not be afraid of anything."
"How can I help it?" I asked.
"Help it? - but haveIbrought those tears into your eyes?"
It was almost worth while to have offended him, to hear the tone of those words. I could not speak.
"I see you are not very angry with me," he said; "but I am with myself. Daisy, my Daisy, you must not be so fearful of unknown dangers."
"I think I have been fearful of them all my life," I answered."Perhaps it is my fault."
And with unspeakable joy I recognised the truth, that at last my life was anchored to one from whom I need neither fear nor disguise anything.
"To fear them is often to bring them." he added.
"I do not think it will, in my case," I said. "But, if Dr. Sandford had known you were coming to see me, he might have carried me off from Washington, just as he did from West Point last year."
"From West Point?" said Mr. Thorold, his eyes making a brilliant commentary on my words; - "Did he carry you away from West Point for any such reason? Is he afraid of me?"
"He would be afraid of anybody," I said in some confusion, forMr. Thorold's eyes were dancing with mischief and pleasure; -"I do not know - of course I do not know what he was afraidof; but I know how itwouldbe."
Mr. Thorold's answer was to take my hand and softly draw it through his own arm. I did not like it; I was fearful of being seen to walk so; yet the assuming of me was done in a manner that I could not resist nor contravene. I knew how Christian's eyes fell upon me; I dared not meet them.
"Is the doctor jealous of you, Daisy?" he whispered laughing.I did not find an answer immediately.
"Does hedare?" Mr. Thorold said in a different tone.
"No, no. Christian, how imperious you are!"
"Yes," he said; "I will be so where you are concerned. What do you mean, Daisy? or what does he mean?"
"He is my guardian, you know," I said; "and he has sharp eyes; and he is careful of me."
"Verycareful?" said Mr. Thorold, laughing and pressing my arm. "Daisy,Iam your guardian while you are in Washington. I wish I had a right to say that you shall have nothing more to do with Dr. Sandford. But for the present I must mind my duty."
"And I mine," - I added, with my heart beating. Now it seemed a good opening for some of the things I had to say; yet my heart beat and I was silent.
"Yours, Daisy?" he said very tenderly. "What is yours? What present pressure of conscience is giving you something hard to do? I know it will be done! What work is this little soldier on?"
I could not tell him. I could not. My answer diverged.
"What areyouon, Christian?"
"The same thing. Rather preparing for work - preparing others.I am at that all day."
"And do you expect there will be real work, as you call it?Will it come to that?"
"Looks like it. What do you think of Fairfax Court-house? - and Great Bethel? - and Falling Waters, and so on?"
"That was bad, at Great Bethel," I said.
"Mismanagement -" said Mr. Thorold calmly.
"And at Vienna."
"No, the troops behaved well. They behaved well, Daisy. I am content with that."
"Do you think - don't be angry, Christian! - do you think the people of the North generally will make as fiery fighting men as the people of the South, who are used to fighting, and commanding, and the practice of arms?"
"When you get a quiet man angry, Daisy, he is the very worst man to deal with that you ever saw."
"But the people of the North are all accustomed to peaceful employments?"
Mr. Thorold laughed, looking down at me with infinite amusement and tenderness mixed.
"I see what your training has been," he said. "What will you do when you have one of those quiet people for your husband?"
"Quiet!" said I. "When your eyes are showering sparks of fire all over me!"
"Daisy," he said, "those rose leaves in your cheeks are the very prettiest bits of colour I ever saw in my life."
"But we are wandering from the subject," I said.
"No, we are not," he said decidedly. "You are my one subject at all times."
"Not when you are training soldiers?" I said half laughing. But he gave me a look which silenced me. And it nearly took away all the courage I had, for everything I wanted to say to him and had found it so difficult to say.
"Christian," I began again after an interval, "were the troops that were sent over into Virginia just now, sent, do you suppose, to meet Beauregard?"
"I suppose so."
"You are not going?" - I asked, because the question was torturing me.
He looked down at me again, a steady, fixed, inquiring look, that grew very full of affection before he answered,
"I hope so, Daisy."
"You are not ordered!"
"No; not yet."
"But if you were to go, would you not know it by this time?"
"Not certainly. Some troops will be left here of course, to guard Washington."
I walked with my heart in my mouth. I knew, what he did not say, that orders might be issued suddenly and as suddenly obeyed; with no beforehand warning or after delay. How could I speak anything of what had been in my mind to be said? Yet the very circumstances which made it more difficult made it also imperative, to speak them. I fought myself, while Mr. Thorold sometimes watched me and constantly took care of me, with a thoughtful care in little things which was eloquent.
"Christian" - I began, feeling my voice changed.
"That is to tell me we must turn homeward?" he said gayly.
"No; I want to speak to you. But we must turn homeward too."
"To speak to me? In that voice? Look at me, Daisy. - No, I won't hear it now, and not here. We must have something better. Daisy, go and ride with me to- morrow evening!"
"Oh, I cannot."
"Yes, Daisy. I ask it of you. Dr. Sandford is in bed. He cannot go along. Then you can tell me all that is on your mind about Northern soldiers."
"Oh, I only thought Christian - You know, I know the temper of the Southern people."
"You will know the temper of the other section of the country some day," he said, with a smile at me which was half serious and half personal in its bearing. But he made me promise to go and ride with him if I could; and so left me.
I met Mrs. Sandford as I went into the house. She said she was glad I kept up my walks; she was sorry I had such a terribly dull time; it was a pity I came to Washington. Dr. Sandford was no better, and much worried about me, that I should be so cut off from amusement.
"Tell him I am doing very well, and having time to read the papers," I said.
"Those horrid papers!" said Mrs. Sandford. "They make my hair stand on end. I wouldn't read them; Daisy."
"But you do."
"Well, I cannot keep my hands off them when I see them; but I wish I was where I could never see them. Ever since I read General Beauregard's proclamation, I have been in a fury with everything South; and it is uncomfortable to be in a fury. O dear! I wish Grant would get well and take us away. Come in and let us have a cup of tea, dear. Isn't it hot?"
I took the tea and bore the talk, till both were done and I could shut myself into the seclusion of my own room. And tears did not come to-night, but dry heart- aching pain instead; with which I struggled till the night had worn far on. Struggled, trying to reason it away and to calm it down by faith and prayer. Ah me! how little reason could do, or faith either. For reason only affirmed and enlarged my fears; and faith had no power to say; they might not come true. The promise, "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings," belongs to those who have their will so merged in God's will as not to be careful what that will may be. I had not got so far. A new lesson was set me in my experience book; even to lay my will down; and nobody who has not learned or tried to learn that lesson knows how mortal hard it is. It seemed to me my heart was breaking the whole livelong night.
A little sleep and the fresh morning light set me up again. I was to ride with Mr. Thorold in the evening; my mind fixed on that nearest point, and refused for the moment to go further. I heard from Mrs. Sandford at breakfast that Dr. Sandford was no better; his low nervous prostration continued and threatened to continue. Mrs. Sandford was much troubled about me. All this suited my convenience; even her unnecessary concern; for I had made up my mind to tell Mrs. Sandford I was going to ride; but I would not till our late dinner, that there might be no chance of her consulting the doctor. At dinner I mentioned that a friend had asked me to ride and I had half consented. Mrs. Sandford looked somewhat startled and asked who the friend might be?
"Another officer," I said quietly; "his name is Thorold. I saw him last summer, Mrs. Sandford; and I know about him. He is a good one to go with."
"I can't ask Grant anything," she said, looking doubtful. "He knows everybody."
"It is not needful," I answered. "I am going to take the indulgence this once. I think it will do me good."
"Daisy, my dear!" said Mrs. Sandford - "You are as good as possible - but you have a will of your own. All you Southerners have, I think."
I replied that I was a Northerner; and the talk went to other things. Mrs. Sandford left me with a kiss and the injunction to take care of myself. I was very glad to get off so, for she looked a little unsatisfied. My way was clear now. I dressed with a bounding heart, mounted, and was away with Mr. Thorold; feeling beneath all my gladness that now was my time and my only time for doing all the difficult work I had set myself. But gladness was uppermost, as I found myself in the saddle and away, with Mr. Thorold by my side; - for once free and alone together; - gladness that kept us both still I think; for we exchanged few words till we were clear of the city and out upon the open country. There we slackened bridle, and I began to feel that the minutes were exceedingly precious. I dreaded lest some words of Christian's should make it impossible for me to do what I had to do.
"Christian," I began, "I have things to talk to you about."
"Well," said he brightly, "you shall. Will it take a great while, Daisy? Because I have things to talk toyouabout."
"Not a great while, I hope," I said, almost stammering.
"You shall talk what you will, darling. But wait till we get a better place."
I would have liked the place where we were, and the time. Better where the road was rough than where it was smooth; easier where there was something to make interruption than where Christian could give too exclusive heed to me. But I could not gainsay him; and we rode on, till we came to a piece of pretty broken ground with green turf and trees. Here Mr. Thorold stopped and proposed that we should dismount; he said we should talk more at our ease so. I thought my predetermined measures of dignity could be more easily maintained on horseback; but I could not bear to refuse him, and he did not mean to be refused, I saw. He had dismounted even while he spoke, and throwing his horse's bridle over the branch of a tree, came to lift me down; first throwing his cap on the grass. Then keeping me in his arms and bending a brilliant inquisitive look on my face, he asked me,
"Daisy - is this my Daisy, as I left her?"
I could not help answering a plain yes. Nothing in me was changed; and come what might, that was true. No other answer would have been true. And I could not blame him that he held me fast and kissed me, almost as he had done that first time. Almost; but the kisses were more grave and deliberate now; every one seemed a seal and a taking possession. Indeed the whole manner of Mr. Thorold had taken gravity and manliness and purpose; he was changed, as it would have taken much longer in other circumstances to change a man. I stood still and trembled, I believe; but I could no more check him than I could that first night.
Still holding me fast, he lifted my face a little and smiling asked me, what Daisy had to say to him? The tone, tender and happy, was as much as I could bear; more than I could answer. He led me a little way, arranged a seat for me on a green bank, and threw himself down by my side. But that was very inconvenient, for he could look up right into my face.
"Business, Daisy?" he said gayly and tenderly at once. The tone seemed to .touch the colour in my cheeks and the droop of my eyes.
"Yes," I said. "It is business."
"Well, what, love?"
"Christian," said I, putting my hand in his, "you know papa and mamma do not know of this."
"They shall know, as soon as I can write to them," he answered. "I understand - you do not wish that, Daisy; but see - I cannot leave it unsaid, as long as your thought would leave it. Till they know, I have only half a right to you. I cannot live so."
"You must," I whispered, - "till this war is over."
"What then?" said he quickly. "How will that help the matter?"
"Then they may see you for themselves. A letter would not do."
"If you please, how do you expect I am to live till then?" he said smiling. "With half a right to you."
"Yes - with that, - and without writing to me," I answered.
"Daisy!" exclaimed Thorold, raising himself half up.
"Yes," I said - "I know - I have been wanting to talk to you about it. Youknow, Christian, I could not write nor receive your letters without my father's and mother's permission."
"Canyoubear that, Daisy?" he asked.
My heart seemed to turn sick. His words suggested nothing new, but they were his words. I failed to answer, and my face went down in my hands.
"There, is no need of that, darling," he said, getting one of them and putting it to his lips. "Here you are fearing dangers again. Daisy -with truth on your side and on mine, nothing can separate us permanently."
"But for the present," - I said as soon as I could speak. "I am sure our chance for the future is better if we are patient and wait now."
"Patient, and wait?" said Mr. Thorold. "If we are patient now? What do you mean by patience? You in Switzerland, with half a hundred suitors by turns; and I here in the smoke of artillery practice, unable to see twenty yards from my drill - andthat, you think, does not call for patience, but you must cut off the post-office from our national institutions. And to wait for you is not enough, but I must wait for news of you as well!"
"Christian!" said I, in desperation - "it is harder for me than for you."
He laughed at that; laughed and looked at me, and his eyes sparkled like a shower of fireworks, and then I was sure that a mist was gathering in them. I could scarcely bear the one thing ands the other. My own composure failed. He did not this time answer by caresses. He got up and paced the turf a little distance below me; his arms folded, his lips set, and the steps never slackening. So he was when I could look up and see. This was worse than anything. And the sun was lowering fast, and we had settled nothing, and our time was going. I waited a minute, and then I called him. He came and stood before me, face and attitude unchanged.
"Christian," I said, - "don't you see that it is best - my plan?"
"No," he said.
I did not know what to urge next. But as I looked at him, his lips unbent and his face shone down at me, after a sort, with love, and tenderness and pleasure. I felt I had not prevailed yet. I rose up and stood before him.
"Indeed it is best!" I said earnestly.
"What do you fear, Daisy?" His look was unchanged and feared nothing. It was very hard to tell him what I feared.
"I think, without seeing you and knowing you, they will never let us write; and I would rather they did not know anything about the - about us - till you can see them."
He took both my hands in his, and I felt how hard it is for a woman to move a man's will when it is once in earnest.
"Daisy, that is not brave," he said.
"No -Iam not," I answered. "But is it not prudent?"
"I do not believe in cowardly prudence," he said; but he kissed me gently to soften the words; "the frank way is the wisest, always, I believe; and anyhow, Daisy, I can't stand any other. I am going to ask you of your father and mother; and I am going to do it without delay."
"I wish they could see you," I said helplessly.
"And as I cannot be present to do my pleading in person, I must trust you to plead for me."
"You forget," said I; "it is against you that you are aNorthern officer."
"That may depend upon the event of the war," he said; and I saw a sparkle again. Wilful and manly as he could be; but he did not know my father and mother. Yet that last word of his might be true; what if it were? The end of the war! When might that be? and how? If all the Northern army were Thorolds, - but I knew they were not. I felt as if my magazine of words was exhausted. I suppose then my face spoke for me. He loosened his hold of one hand to put his arm round me and draw me to him, with a fine tenderness, both reverent and masterful.
"My Daisy" - he said, - "what do you want of me?"
And I could not tell him then. As little could I pretend to be dignified. Pain was too sharp. We drew very close to each other, and were very silent for those minutes. I would command myself, and did, hard work as it was, and though my face lay on his shoulder. I do not know how his face looked; when he spoke again the tone was of the gravest tenderness.
"What do you want of me, Daisy?"
"I think, this," I said, raising my head and laying my hand on his shoulder instead. "Suppose, Christian, you leave the question undecided - the question of letters, I mean, - until I get there, - to Switzerland, - and see my father and mother. Perhaps I can judge then what will be safe to do; and if I can write, you know I will write immediately."
"And if you cannot?"
"Then - I will write once, to let you know how it is."
He stood still, reading my face, until it was a little hard to bear, and my eyes went down.
"Suppose your father and mother - suppose they are obdurate,Daisy, and will not have me, being a Northern man and in theGovernment service?"
What then? I could not say.
"Suppose it, Daisy."
"Well, Christian?" I said, raising my eyes to his face.
"What will you do?"
"You know, Christian, Imustobey my father and mother."
"Even as I my other duty. Well, we are both soldiers. But what would you do, Daisy?"
"Do? -" I repeated.
"Yes," he said very gravely, and with a certain determination to have the answer.
"I should do nothing, Christian. I should be just the same." But I believe my cheeks must have answered for me, for I felt them grow pale.
"What if they chose a Southern husband for you, and laid their commands in his favour?"
"I amyours-" I said, looking up at him. I could not say any more, but I believe Mr. Thorold understood it all, just what I meant him to understand; how that bond could never be unloosed, what though the seal of it might be withheld. He was satisfied.
"You are not brave, Daisy," he said, holding me again very close; "here are these cheeks fairly grown white under my supposings. Does that bring the colour back?" he added laughing.
"Christian," I said, seizing my time while my face was half hidden, "what wouldyoudo, supposing I should prove to be a very poor girl?"
"What is that?" said he, laughing more gayly, and raising my face a little.
"You know what our property is."
"No, I do not."
"You know - I mean, you know, my father's and mother's property is in Southern lands mostly, and in those that cultivate them."
"Yes. I believe I have understood that."
"Well, I will never be the owner of those people - the people that cultivate those lands; and so I suppose I shall not be worth a sixpence; for the land is not much without the people."
"You will not be the owner of them?"
"No."
"Why do you tell me that?" said Mr. Thorold gravely.
"I wanted you to know -" I said, hesitating and beginning very much to wish my words unsaid.
"And the question is, what I will do in the supposed circumstances? Was that it?"
"I said that," - I assented.
"What shall I do?" said Mr. Thorold. "I don't know. If I am in camp, I will pitch a tent for my wife; it shall have soft carpets and damask cushions; as many servants as she likes, and one in especial who will take care that the others do her bidding; scanty accommodations, perhaps, but the air full of welcome. She will like it. If I am stationed in town somewhere, I will fill her house with things to please her. If I am at the old farm, I will make her confess, in a little while, that it is the pleasantest place she ever saw in her life. I don't know what I will do! I will do something to make her ashamed she ever asked me such a question."
"Oh, don't!" said I, with my cheeks burning. "I am very much ashamed now."
"Do you acknowledge that?" he said, laughing and taking his revenge. "So you ought."
But then he made me sit down on the grass again and threw himself at my feet, and began to talk of other things. He would not let me go back to the former subjects. He kept me in a state of amusement, making me talk too about what he would; and with the light of that last subject I had unluckily started, shining all over his face and sparkling in his eye and smile, until my face was in a condition of permanent colour. I had given him an advantage, and he took it and played with it. I resolved I would never give him another. He had gone back apparently to the mood of that evening at Miss Cardigan's; and was full of life and spirits and mischief. I could do nothing but fall in with his mood and be happy; although I remembered I had not gained my point yet; and I half suspected he had a mind I should not gain it. It was a very bright, short half hour; and then I reminded him it was growing late.
"Moonlight -" he said. "There is a good large moon, Daisy."
"But Mrs. Sandford -" I said.
"She knows you are your own mistress."
"ShethinksI am," I said. "You know better."
"You are mine," said Mr. Thorold, with gentle gravity, immediately. "You shall command me. Do you say go, Daisy?"
"May I influence you in something else?" I said putting my hand in his to enforce my words.
"Eh?" said he, clasping the hand. "What, Daisy?"
"Christian, I want you not to write to my father and mother until I give you leave." I thought I would let go arguing and try persuasion.
He looked away, and then looked at me; - a look full of affection, but I saw I had not moved him.
"I do not see how we can settle that, Daisy."
"But you said - you said -"
"What?"
"You said just now, you intimated, that my wishes would have weight with you."
He laughed a little, a moved laugh, and kissed me. But it was not a kiss which carried any compromise.
"Weight with me? Yes, a little. But with me, Daisy. They must not change me into somebody not myself."
"Would that? -"
"If I could be content to have your faith in secret, or to wait to know if I might have it at all? I must be somebody not myself, Daisy."
I pondered and felt very grave. Was it true, that Mr. Thorold, though no Christian, was following a rule of action more noble and good than I, who made such professions? It was noble, I felt that. Had my wish been cowardly and political? Must not open truth be the best way always? Yet with my father and mother old experience had long ago taught me to hold my tongue and not speak till the time came. Which was right? I felt that his rule of action crossed all myinnernature, if it were not indeed the habit which had become second nature. Mr. Thorold watched me.
"What is it, Daisy? - my Daisy?" he asked with a tender inquisitiveness, though looking amused at me.
"I was thinking -" I answered, - "whether you are a great deal better than I am."
"Think it by all means," he said laughing. "I am certainly a good deal braver. But what else, Daisy? there was something else."
"That," said I. "I was thinking of my habit, all my life long, of keeping things back from my father and mother till I thought it was safe to show them."
"Are you going to let that habit live? What lessons you will have to learn, my little Daisy! I could never bear to have my wife afraid of me."
"Of you!" I said. "I never should." - But there I stopped in some confusion, which I knew my neighbour enjoyed. I broke up the enjoyment by standing up and declaring that it was now time to go.
We had a pretty ride home. My mind was disburthened of its various subjects of care which I had had to communicate to Mr. Thorold; and although I had not been able entirely to prevail with him, yet I had done all I could, and my conscience was clear. I let myself enjoy, and the ride was good. Mr. Thorold said we must have another; but I did not believe that feasible.
However, it fell out so. Dr. Sandford lingered on in the same disabled state; his sister-in-law was devoted to her attendance on him; I was left to myself. And it did come to pass, that not only Mr. Thorold and I had walks continually together; but also we had one more good ride. I did not try moving him again on the point of my father and mother. I had read my man and knew that I could not. And I suppose I liked him the better for it. Weakness is the last thing, I think, that a woman forgives in men, who ought to be strong. Christian was not weak; all the more he was gentle and tender and thoughtful for those who were. Certainly for me. Those days, those walks, - what music of thought and manner there was in them! The sort of protecting care and affection I had from him then, I never had from any other at any time. Care that seemed to, make my life his own; affection that made it something much before his own; but all this told, not in words, which could not have been, but in indescribable little things of manner and tone; graces too fine to count and measure. Once I had fancied I ought to put more reserve into my manner, or manage more distance in his; that thought fled from me after the first afternoon's ride and never came back. I did not take care for myself; he took care for me. The affection that held me as a part of himself, held me also as a delicate charge more precious than himself; and while he protected me as one who had a right to do it, he guarded me also as one whose own rights were more valuable than his. He never flattered, nor praised, nor complimented me; or with rare exceptions; but he showed me that he lived for me, and sometimes that he knew I lived for him.
What days and walks! The extreme and impending gravity of the time and the interests at work, lent only a keen and keener perception of their preciousness and sweetness. Any day our opportunities might suddenly come to an end; every day they were welcomed as a special fresh gift. Every evening, as soon as Mr. Thorold's engagements allowed it, he met me on the avenue, and we walked until the evening was as far spent as we durst spend it so. I basked in a sunshine of care and affection which surrounded me, which watched me, which catered to my pleasure, and knew my thoughts before they were spoken. We were both grown suddenly older than our years, Mr. Thorold and I; the coming changes and chances in our lives brought us to life's reality at once.
One ride besides we had; that was all. Except one other experience; which was afterwards precious to me beyond price.
As it became known that Dr. Sandford's illness was persistent and not dangerous, and that I was in consequence leading a (supposed) bitterly dull life; it naturally happened that our acquaintances began to come round us again; and invitations to this or that entertainment came pouring upon me. I generally refused; but once thought it, best, as a blind to Mrs. Sandford, to accept an invitation to ride. Mrs. Sandford as before demurred, but would not object.
"Who is it this time, Daisy?" she asked.
I named Major Fairbairn; luckily also an officer whom I had known the last summer at West Point.
"Nothing but officers!" she remarked in a dubious tone. "Not much else to be had here."
"And nothing much better anywhere," I said, "when, one is going on horseback. They know how to ride."
"All Southerners know that. By the way, Daisy, I have heard yesterday of Lieutenant Gary. He is in Beauregard's army."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Quite, I think. I was told by Mr. Lumpkin; and he knows all the Southern doings, and people."
"Then he ought not to be here." I said. "He may let them know our doings."
"Ours!" said Mrs. Sandford. "How fierce you are. Is Major Fairbairn South or North? I don't remember."
"From Maine."
"Well. But, Daisy, what will your father and mother say to you?"
There was no use in considering that question. I dismissed it, and got ready for the major and my horse. Mounted, my companion asked me, where should we go? I had considered that point; and after a little pause asked, as coolly as I could, where there were any troops drilling in cavalry or artillery exercises. Major Fairbairn pondered a minute and told me, with rather a rueful countenance.
"Let us go there first," I said. "It is an old story to you; but I never saw such a thing. I want to see it and understand it, if I can."
"Ladies like to see it, I know," said the major.
"You think, we cannot understand it?"
"I don't see how you should."
"I am going to try, Major Fairbairn. And notwithstanding your hopeless tone, I expect you to give me all the help you can."
"I think, the less you understand of it, the better," said the major.
"Pray why?"
"Doesn't seem comfortable knowledge, for those who cannot use it."
"Men think that of many things," I said. "And they are much mistaken. Knowledge is always comfortable. I mean, it is comfortable to have it, rather than to be ignorant."
"I don't know -" said the major. "Where ignorance is bliss -"
"Ignorance never is bliss!" I said energetically.
"Then the poet must be wrong."
"Don't you think poets may be wrong as well as other people,Major Fairbairn?"
"I hope so! or I should wish to be a poet. And that would be a vain wish for me."
"But in these war matters," I resumed, as we cantered on, "I am very much interested; and I think all women ought to be - must be."
"Getting to be serious earnest -" said the major, resignedly.
I was silenced for a while. The words, "serious earnest," rang in my heart as we went through the streets.
"Is it getting to be such serious earnest?" I asked as lightly as I could.
"We shall know more about it soon," the major answered.Hiscarelessness was real.
"How soon?"
"May be any day. Beauregard is making ready for us at ManassasJunction."
"How many men do you suppose he has?"
"Can't tell," said the major. "There is no depending, I think myself, on any accounts we have. The Southern people generally are very much in earnest."
"And the North are," I said.
"It is just a question of who will hold out best."
I thought I knew who those would be; and a shiver for a moment ran through my heart. Christian had said, that the success of his suit with my father and mother might depend on how the war went. And certainly, if the struggle should be at all prolonged and issue in the triumph of the rebels, they would have little favour for the enemies they would despise. How if the war went for the North?
I believe I lost several sentences of my companion in the depth of my musing; remembered this would not do; shook off my thoughts and talked gayly, until we came to the place where he said the drilling process was going on. I wondered if it were the right place; then made sure that it was; and sat on my horse looking and waiting, with my heart in a great flutter. The artillery wagons were rushing about; I recognisedthem;and a cloud of dust accompanied and swallowed up their movements, a little too distant from me just now to give room for close observation.
"Well, how do you like it, Miss Randolph?" my major began, with a tone of some exultation at my supposed discomfiture.
"It is very confused -" I said. "I do not see what they are doing."
"No more than you could if it was a battle," said the major.
"Won't they come nearer to us?"
"No doubt they will, if we give them time enough."
I would not take this hint. I had got my chance; I was not going to fling it away. I had discerned besides in the distant smoke and dust a dark figure on a gray horse, which I thought I knew. Nothing would have drawn me from the spot then. I kept up a scattering fire of talk with my companion, I do not know how, to prevent the exhaustion of his patience; while my heart went out at my eyes to follow the gray horse. I was rewarded at last. The whole battery charged down upon the point where we were standing, at full gallop, "as if we had been the Secession army," Major Fairbairn remarked; adding, that nothing but a good conscience could have kept me so quiet. And in truth guns and horses and all were close upon us before the order to halt was given, and the gunners flung themselves from the wagons and proceeded to unlimber and get the battery in working order, with the mouths of the cannon only a few yards from our standing-place. I hardly heard the major now, for the gray horse and dark rider were near enough to be seen, stationed quietly a few paces in the rear of the line of guns. I saw his eye going watchfully from one point to another of his charge; his head making quick little turns to right and left to see if all were doing properly; the horse a statue, the man alive as quicksilver, though nothing of him moved but his head. I was sure, very sure, that he would not see me. He was intent on his duty; spectators or the whole world looking on were nothing to him. He would not even perhaps be conscious that anybody was in his neighbourhood. I don't know whether I was most glad or sorry; though indeed, I desired nothing less than that he should give any sign that he saw me. How well he looked on horseback, I thought; how stately he sat there, motionless, overseeing his command. There was a pause now; they were all still, waiting for an order. I might have expected what it would be; but I did not, till the words suddenly came out -
"Battery - Fire!"
The voice went through my heart; but my horse's nerves were immediately as much disturbed as mine. The order was followed by a discharge of the whole battery at once, sounding as the burst of one gun. My horse, exceedingly surprised, lifted his fore feet in the air on the instant; and otherwise testified to his discomposure; and I had some little difficulty to keep him to the spot and bring him back to quietness. It was vexatious to lose such precious minutes; however, we were composed again by the time the smoke of the guns was clearing away. I could hardly believe my eyes. There lay the cannon, on the ground, taken from their carriages; the very carriages themselves were all in pieces; here lay one wheel, there lay another; the men were sitting around contentedly.
"What is the matter?" I exclaimed.
"The officer in charge of the drill, seeing what mischief his guns have unwittingly done, you see, Miss Randolph, has taken his battery to pieces. He will not fire any more while you are here. By George!" said the major, "I believe here he comes to tell us so."
I wished myself away, as I saw the gray horse leap over some of the obstacles before him and bear down straight towards me. I bowed low, to hide various things. Mr. Thorold touched his cap gravely, to the major as well as to me, and then brought his gray horse alongside.
"Your horse does not like my battery," he remarked.
I looked up at him. His face was safely grave; it meant business; but his eyes sparkled a little for me; and as I looked he smiled, and added,
"He wants a spur."
"To make him run? I had difficulty enough to prevent his doing that just now, Mr. Thorold."
"No; to make him stand still. He wants punishing."
"Miss Randolph deserves a great deal of credit," said the major. "But all Southern women know how to ride; and the men to fight."
"We are going to have a hard time then," said Thorold; with a wilful presuming on his privileges.
"But what have you done with your battery?" I asked.
"Taken it to pieces - as you see."
"Pray, what for? I thought something was the matter."
"Nothing was the matter, I am glad to know," Thorold said looking at me. "It is sometimes necessary to do this sort of thing in a hurry; and the only way to do it then in a hurry, is to practise now when there is no hurry. You shall see how little time it will take to get ready for another order to fire. But Miss Randolph had better be out of the way first. Are you going farther?"
The major said he hoped so, and I answered certainly.
"I shall fire no more while you are here," Thorold said as he touched his cap, and he gallopped back to his place. He sat like a rock; it was something pretty to see. Then came an order, which I could not distinguish; and in an incredibly short time wheels were geared, guns were mounted, and the dismantled condition of everything replaced by the most alert order. The major said it was done very well, and told me how quick it could be done; I forget, but I think he said in much less than a minute; and then I know he wanted to move; but I could not. I held my place still, and the battery manoeuvred up and down the ground in all manner of directions, forming in various forms of battery; which little by little I got the major partially to explain. He was not very fluent; and I did not like his explanations; but nevertheless it was necessary to give him something to do, and I kept him busy, while the long line of artillery wagons rushed over the ground, and skirted it, and trailed across it in diagonal lines; walking sometimes, and sometimes going at full speed of horses and wheels. It stirred me, it saddened me, it fascinated me, all at once; while the gray horse and his rider held my eye far and near with a magnet hold. Sometimes in one part of the line, sometimes in another, the moving spirit and life of the whole. I followed and watched him with eye and heart, till my heart grew sick and I turned away.
My ride with Major Fairbairn made me unsettled. Or else it was my seeing Mr. Thorold at his drill. A certain impatience seized me; an impatience of the circumstances and position in which I found myself privately, and of the ominous state and position of affairs in public. The horizon black with clouds, the grumble of the storm, and yet the portentous waiting and quiet which go before the storm's burst. It irked me to see Mr. Thorold as I had seen him yesterday; knowing ourselves united, but standing apart as if it were not so, and telling a lie to the world. It weighed on me, and I half felt that Christian was right and that anything openly acknowledged was easier to bear. And then Major Fairbairn's talk had filled me with fears. He represented things as being so very threatening, and the outbreak of the storm as being so very near; I could not regain the tranquillity of the days past, do what I would. I did a very unwise thing, I suppose, for I went to reading the papers. And they were full of Northern preparations and of Southern boastings; I grew more and more unsettled as I read. Among other things, I remember, was a letter from Russell, theTimescorrespondent, over which my heart beat wearily. For Mr. Russell, I thought, being an Englishman, and not a party to our national quarrel, might be expected to judge more coolly and speak more dispassionately than our own writers, either South or North. And the speeches he reported as heard from Southern gentlemen, and the feelings he observed to be common among them, were most adverse to any faint hope of mine that the war might soon end, or end advantageously for the North, or when it ended, leave my father and mother kindly disposed for my happiness. All the while I read, a slow knell seemed to be sounding at my heart. "We could have got on with those fanatics if they had been either Christians or gentlemen" - "there are neither Christians nor gentlemen among them." "Nothing on earth shall ever induce us to submit to any union with the brutal, bigoted blackguards of the New England States, who neither comprehend nor regard the feelings of gentlemen." That was like what Preston said. I recognised the tone well. And when it was added, "Man, woman, and child, we'll die first" - I thought it was probably true. What chance then for Christian and me? "There is nothing in all the dark caves of human passion," Mr. Russell wrote, "so cruel and deadly as the hatred the South Carolinians profess for the Yankees." The end of the letter contained a little comfort in the intimation of more moderate counsels just then taking favour; but I went back to my father and mother, and aunt, and Preston, and others; and comfort found no lodgment with me. Then there was an extract from a Southern paper, calling Yankees "the most contemptible and detestable of God's creation" - speaking of their "mean, niggardly lives - their low, vulgar and sordid occupations" - and I thought, How can peace be? or what will it be when it comes?
I went out for my usual evening walk, longing and half dreading to see Mr. Thorold; for I did not like to show him my fears; they gave him pain; and yet at the same time I wanted him to scold them away. But this time I did not see him. I walked the avenue, at first eagerly, then anxiously; then with an intense pressing pain and suspense which could hardly be borne. Neither Thorold nor Thorold's horse appeared among all the figures moving there; and after walking as long as I dared, I was fain to go home with that pain in my heart. It seemed, as I went up the stairs to my room, almost as if I could die at once with it. Yet I had to make my hair smooth and meet Mrs. Sandford at tea, and hear all her little details about Dr. Sandford's illness; which, as they were precisely the same as those of the day before, had nothing even to hold my attention for a moment. But I attended. It was necessary. And I eat toast and drank tea. That was necessary too; with every mouthful a stab of pain, and every little ordinary incident of the tea-table a wrenching of my heartstrings. One does those things quietly and the world never knows. But I hailed it as a great relief when Mrs. Sandford rose from the table.
"Poor Daisy!" she said. "I must leave you to yourself again - all alone. It's too bad!"
"I like it very well so," I told her.
"It mustn't go on," she said. "Really it must not. You will mope, if you don't already.Don'tyou, Daisy? Where are all your admirers?"
She had touched my face caressingly with her fingers, and I had to look up and meet her. It was one of the hardest minutes of self-control I ever knew. I met her and answered calmly, even coldly; and she went; and I sat down and shrank, I remember how I shrank, lowering my head and neck and shoulders in a crushing reaction from the erect self-assertion of the moment before. The next thing, two hands were on my shoulders and a voice whispered in my ear a question, "what was the matter?". So as no other voice ever asked me that question; - with the tender assumption of the right to know, and an equally gentle hint that there was comfort and help somewhere not far off. Now, however, I only started up with terror at hearing that voice there; - terror instantly displaced by another terror at the reason of its being there. I knew, I can't tell how I knew, by the first glance into Mr. Thorold's face.
"Yes," said he, in a low voice, "I have got orders."
"Where?" I managed to ask. "To do what?"
"I must take a battery across the country to GeneralPatterson."
"That will take you out of the way," I said.
"Out of the way of what?" said he, drawing me to his breast, and looking down into my face with his hazel eyes sparkling over a depth of something that was not merry. "Out of the way of what, Daisy?" he repeated. "Out of the way of fighting, do you mean? Is that your way of being a proper soldier's wife? It is out of your way, love; that is what I think of."
I hid my face and we stood still. It was no time then to be dignified.
"How long?" - I whispered at last.
"Impossible to tell, you know. I could not meet you this evening. I must be off in an hour."
"To-night?"
"Yes."
There was another silence.
"What is General Patterson doing?" I ventured then.
"I suppose he has to keep Johnston in order. How long will you stay in Washington? - can you tell?"
"Till Dr. Sandford can travel. - He is no better."