At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 229: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

218 ) AT A GIRL'S MERCY. And now, to-night, Frank was coming back to the peace and the quiet of home, and with him would come the girl who had nursed him with such tender care, who had shown him the sweetness and the nobleness of women standing on the other side of the fight ready if the chance came to prove the will- ingness of the heart to do and to suffer if need be. And the old Hall was alive with the gladness that had entered it with the coming of this news, and the waiting hearts were eager preparing for the wel- . come to the returned brave brother and the un- known but surely loved girl who had brought him back to life and the dear home. ‘‘And what is the use of waiting?’’ Ned had whis- pered in the ear of the sunny-haired sister waiting the return of her brother from the chances and the changes of war. ‘‘What is the use of waiting, Nan? Why can’t we get married, too, when Frank comes home with his bride——’’ But Nan would not listen, and laughed her sauci- est as she retorted her answer, flashing her great blue eyes, so alight with happiness, upon this eager, lover of hers. ; ‘‘No, Ned Travers. There shall be nothing but the home coming of our dear old Frank with his bride that night. I could never think of you, even at such a time, as I must think of the man Iam marrying.”’ And he had kissed the willful lips, acknowledg- ing that the lady of his choice had won—surely—the right todo as she would about the wedding day, when she had given her heart to such tender work as he knew had filled her days in the strange hos- pital of the church under its dreary shadows, scarred with the smoke and cannon of the battle, where many a life went out with her tender face bent above, and many a life was saved with her patience and her tenderness. And the squire, with his added years and the marks of care upon his grand old face, could have asked for no more happiness as he sat with his gentle, white-haired wife—given back to him from the very edge of the grave, as he said—among the Eomicbooks.co