"I gave her that the first Christmas after I found her. She wasn't
as tidy about her clothes as I liked to see, and I thought if I gave
her a handy thing like this, she'd be willing to sew. But she only
made one shirt for me, and then got tired, so I keep it like an old
fool, as I am. Yes, that's the bit of lead that would have done for
me, if Mary's likeness hadn't been just where it was."
"You'll like to show her this when you go home, won't you?" said
Dick, as he took up the bullet, while Phil examined the marred
picture, and Thorn poised the little thimble on his big finger, with
a sigh.
"How can I, when I don't know where she is, and camp is all the home
I've got?"
The words broke from him like a sudden cry, when some old wound is
rudely touched. Both of the young men started, both laid back the
relics they had taken up, and turned their eyes from Thorn's face,
across which swept a look of shame and sorrow, too significant to be
misunderstood. Their silence assured him of their sympathy, and, as
if that touch of friendlessness unlocked his heavy heart, he eased
it by a full confession. When he spoke again, it was with the
calmness of repressed emotion; and calmness more touching to his
mates than the most passionate outbreak, the most pathetic
lamentation; for the coarse camp-phrases seemed to drop from his
vocabulary; more than once his softened voice grew tremulous, and to
the words "my little girl," there went a tenderness that proved how
dear a place she still retained in that deep heart of his.
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