"I--I can't help but cry," sobbed Jeanne with an effort at self-control.
"It's all right, my little girl. Cry all you want to. You are nervous and overwrought. I feel as if I'd like to do the same if I wasn't a man. Sleep well because you are safe now, and you won't have any more of this to go through. Good-night."
"Good-night," murmured Jeanne and presently she grew calm under Tenny's soothing ministrations.
It was late before Jeanne awoke the next morning. The sun was shining brightly and she lay idly watching the dancing of the sunbeams upon the wall scarcely realizing where she was. Presently it all came back to her, and a convulsive shudder shook her frame as she seemed to hear again the whistle of shot and shell, the cries of the wounded and the shrieks of the unhappy crew of the gunboat as it blew to atoms.
"How can the sun shine after all that has happened?" asked the girl with that wonder that comes to all of us when, after some great calamity, nature presents the same undisturbed aspect. "Oh, how can I ever laugh again!"
"Is you 'wake, honey?" queried old Tenny peering in at the door. "Massa Cap'n say when it's 'venient fer yer he laik ter hab yer kum ter see 'Miral Farragut."
"What! have we reached Commodore Farragut? He said 'Commodore' didn't he, Tenny?" inquired Jeanne, who did not know that Farragut had been recently made a rear admiral.
"No, honey; he said 'Miral, I'se suah," returned the negress.
Jeanne dressed quickly and then hastened to Captain Leathers.
"How are you this morning, Jeanne?" was the Captain's salutation. "Pretty thankful to be on earth, aren't you? Admiral," turning to a slight, modest looking middle aged man with gray hair, "this is the girl I was telling you about. She stood fire last night like a veteran."
"You have shown yourself to be a true heroine," said Admiral Farragut taking her hand. "It is not often that we meet such courage in one so young."
"I never heard that you were deficient in this quality," said the Captain. "Seems to me that I've heard of a number of your exploits when you were a lad."
"I was a boy, Captain. One expects such things from a lad but a tender, delicate little girl,"--and he smiled such a winning smile at Jeanne that she involuntarily drew closer to him,--"that is decidedly different. Boys take to such things naturally unless they are molly coddles. Were you not afraid, little girl?"