"Would I?--O wouldn't I? and be glad of the chance. I'd give anything to go where I couldn't get sight or sound of that horrid Snipe. Can't I go with you, Miss Ercildoune?"
"I have no counter behind which to station you," said Francesca, smiling.
"No, I know,--of course; but"--looking at the daintily arrayed figure--"you have plenty of elegant things to make, and I can do pretty much anything with my needle, if you'd like to trust me with some work. And then--I'm ashamed to ask so much of you, but a few words from you to your friends, I'm sure, would send me all that I could do, and more."
"You think so?" Miss Ercildoune inquired, with a curious intonation to her voice, and the strangest expression darkening her face. "Very well, it shall be tried."
Sallie was nonplussed by the tone and look, but she comprehended the closing words fully and with delight. "You will take me with you," she cried. "O, how good, how kind you are! how shall I ever be able to thank you?"
"Don't thank me at all," said Miss Ercildoune, "at least not now. Wait till I have done something to deserve your gratitude."
But Sallie was not to be silenced in any such fashion, and said her say with warmth and meaning; then, after some further talk about time and plans, went away carrying a bit of work which Miss Ercildoune had found, or made, for her, and for which she had paid in advance.
"God bless her!" thought Sallie; "how nice and how thoughtful she is! Most ladies, if they'd done anything for me, would have given me some money and made a beggar of me, and I should have felt as mean as dish-water. But now"--she patted her little bundle and walked down the street, elated and happy.
Francesca watched her out of the door with eyes that presently filled with tears. "Poor girl!" she whispered; "poor Sallie! her lover has gone to the wars with a shadow between them. Ah, that must not be; I must try to bring them together again, if he loves her dearly and truly. He might die,"--she shuddered at that,--"die, as other men die, in the heat and flame of battle. My God! my God! how shall I bear it? Dead! and without a word! Gone, and he will never know how well I love him! O Willie, Willie! my life, my love, my darling, come back, come back to me."