mother.

"Here, Charley, tell them all about it," called Christy to his
companion, who had been forgotten in the excitement of the moment.

"Why, Charley Graines!" exclaimed Florry, rushing to him with an
extended hand. "I did not know you were here."

"I am glad to see you, Charley, especially as you have been a friend and
associate of my son, as you were before the war," added Mrs. Passford.

"I am very glad to see you, Mrs. Passford and Miss Passford," said he,
bowing to both of them. "I have been on duty recently with Christy, and
I have been looking out for him on the voyage home."

"Charley has been a brother to me, and done everything under the canopy
for me. I am somewhat fatigued just now," added the lieutenant, as he
seated himself on a sofa in the hall. "He will answer your questions
now, and tell you that I am not killed."

"But come into the sitting-room, my son, for we can make you more
comfortable there," said his mother, taking him by the right arm, and
assisting him to rise.

"I don't need any help, mamma," added Christy playfully, as he rose from
the sofa. "I have not been butchered, and I haven't anything but a
little bullet-hole through the fleshy part of my left arm. Don't make a
baby of me; for a commander in the Confederate navy told me that God
made some fully-developed men before they were twenty-one, and that I
was one of them. Don't make me fall from my high estate to that of an
overgrown infant, mother."

"I will not do anything of the kind, my son," replied Mrs. Passford, as
she arranged the cushions on the sofa for him. "Now, Florry, get a wrap
for him."

Christy stretched himself out on the sofa, for he was really fatigued by
the movements of the forenoon and the excitement of his return to the
scenes of his childhood.

"Tell them what the doctors said about my wound, Charley," he continued,
as he arranged himself for the enjoyment of a period of silence.

"Mr. Passford has had two surgeons," Mr. Graines began.

"Then he must have been very badly wounded!" ejaculated Florry, leaping
to a very hasty conclusion.

"Not at all," protested the engineer. "Both of them said he was not
severely wounded."

"Why was he sent home on a furlough?" asked Mrs. Passford.

"Because the weather was getting very hot in the Gulf of Mexico, and
it was believed that he would do better at home. He has been somewhat
feverish; but he is improving every day, and in a couple of weeks he
will be