on the awful verge of matrimony. Nothing can surprise me now: I'm prepared for any
thing, even the sight of my Quakerish lover dancing a jig."
"Just what I've been longing to do! Come and take a turn: it will do you good;" and, to
Christie's utter amazement, David caught her round the waist and waltzed her down the
boarded walk with a speed and skill that caused less havoc among the flower-pots than
one would imagine, and seemed to delight the plants, who rustled and nodded as if
applauding the dance of the finest double flower that had ever blossomed in their midst.
"I can't help it, Christie," he said, when he had landed her breathless and laughing at the
other end. "I feel like a boy out of school, or rather a man out of prison, and must enjoy
my liberty in some way. I'm not a talker, you know; and, as the laws of gravitation forbid
my soaring aloft anywhere, I can only express my joyfully uplifted state of mind by
'prancing,' as you call it. Never mind dignity: let's be happy, and by and by I'll sober
down."
"I don't want you to; I love to see you so young and happy, only you are not the old
David, and I've got to get acquainted with the new one."
"I hope you'll like him better than the frost-bitten 'old David' you first knew and were
kind enough to love. Mother says I've gone back to the time before we lost Letty, and I
sometimes feel as if I had. In that case you will find me a proud, impetuous, ambitious
fellow, Christie, and how will that suit?"
"Excellently; I like pride of your sort; impetuosity becomes you, for you have learned to
control it if need be; and the ambition is best of all. I always wondered at your want of it,
and longed to stir you up; for you did not seem the sort of man to be contented with mere
creature comforts when there are so many fine things men may do. What shall you
choose, Davy?"
"I shall wait for time to show. The sap is all astir in me, and I'm ready for my chance. I
don't know what it is, but I feel very sure that some work will be given me into which I
can put my whole heart and soul and strength. I spoilt my first chance; but I know I shall
have another, and, whatever it is, I am ready to do my best, and live or die for it as God
wills."
"So am I," answered Christie, with a voice as earnest and a face as full of hopeful
resolution as his own.
Then they went back to their work, little dreaming as they tied roses and twined smilax
wreaths, how near that other chance was; how soon they were to be called upon to keep
their promise, and how well each was to perform the part given them in life and death.
The gun fired one April morning at Fort Sumter told many men like David what their
work was to be, and showed many women like Christie a new right to claim and bravely
prove their fitness to possess.
No need to repeat the story of the war begun that day; it has been so often told that it will
only be touched upon here as one of the experiences of Christie's life, an experience
which did for her what it did for all who took a share in it, and loyally acted their part.
