with Si as soon as anybody," and
she hid her face in her hands in maidenly confusion.

"Of course you ought, you dear thing," said Maria, her own womanhood
overcoming her momentary pique. "It was hateful o' me to speak that way
to you."

And she kissed Annabel effusively, though a little deadness still
weighed at her heart over being supplanted, even by the girl she liked
best in all the world after her own sister.

If the young folks had not been so engaged in their own affairs they
would have seen the Deacon furtively undoing his leathern pocket-book
and slipping a greenback into the weeping Mrs. Blagdon's hand, as the
only consolation he was able to give her.

There were plenty of strong, willing hands to help carry Si from the
caboose to the wagon. It was strange how tender and gentle those strong,
rough farmers could be in handling a boy who had been stricken down in
defense of his country. Annabel's face was as red as a hollyhock over
the way that everybody assumed her right to be next to Si, and those who
could not get a chance at helping him helped her to a seat in the
wagon alongside of him, while the dethroned Maria took her place by her
father, as he gathered the reins in his sure hands and started home.
Maria had to expend some of the attentions she meant for Si upon Shorty,
who received them with awkward confusion.

"Now, don't make no great shakes out o' me, Miss Maria," he pleaded. "I
didn't do nothin' partickler, I tell you. I was only along o' Si when
he snatched that rebel flag, and I got a little crack on the head, which
wouldn't 've amounted to nothin', if I hadn't ketched the fever at
Chattanoogy. I'm a'most well, and only come back home to please the
Surgeon, who was tired seein' me around."

They found the house a blaze of light, shining kindly from the moment
it came in sight, and there was a welcome in Towser's bark which touched
Si's heart.

"Even the dogs bark differently up here. Shorty," he said. "It's full
and honest, and don't mean no harm. You know that old Towser ain't
barkin' to signal some bushwhackers that the Yankees 's comin'. It
sounds like real music."

It was Mrs. Klegg's turn to receive a shock when she rushed out to greet
her son, and found Annabel by his side. It went deeper to her heart than
it had to Maria's; but, then, she had more philosophy, and had foreseen
it longer.

After everything had been done, after she had fed them her
carefully-prepared dishes, after