Will you please to give me your arm ?" And taking an arm which was very little able to give her support, she walked down the broad stairs, and into the apartment where the Colonel sate.
She made him a ceremonious curtsey, and extended one of the little hands, which she allowed for a moment to rest in his.

"I wish that our meeting had been happier, Colonel Washington," she said.
"You do not grieve more than I do that it is otherwise, madam," said the Colonel.
"I might have wished that the meeting had been spared, that I might not have kept you from friends whom you are naturally anxious to see,--that my boy's indisposition had not detained you.

Home and his good nurse Mountain, and his mother and our good Doctor Dempster, will soon restore him.

'Twas scarce necessary, Colonel, that you, who have so many affairs on your hands, military and domestic, should turn doctor too." "Harry was ill and weak, and I thought it was my duty to ride by him," faltered the Colonel.
"You yourself, sir, have gone through the fatigues and dangers of the campaign in the most wonderful manner," said the widow, curtseying again, and looking at him with her impenetrable black eyes.
"I wish to Heaven, madam, some one else had come back in my place!" "Nay, sir, you have ties which must render your life more than ever valuable and dear to you, and duties to which, I know, you must be anxious to betake yourself.

In our present deplorable state of doubt and distress, Castlewood can be a welcome place to no stranger, much less to you, and so I know, sir, you will be for leaving us ere long.