The Christmas Peace | Page 6

was ended for her, she had devoted herself wholly to
the cause, and self-repression had given to her face the gentleness and
consecration of a nun.
It was said that once as she bent over a wounded common soldier, he
returned to consciousness, and after gazing up at her a moment, asked
vaguely, "Who are you, Miss?"
"I am one of the sisters whom our Father has sent to nurse you and help

you to get well. But you must not talk."
The wounded man closed his eyes and then opened them with a faint
smile.
"All right; just one word. Will you please ask your pa if I may be his
son-in-law?"
Into the hospital was brought one day a soldier so broken and bandaged
that no one but Lucy Drayton might have recognized Oliver Hampden.
For a long time his life was despaired of; but he survived.
When consciousness returned to him, the first sound he heard was a
voice which had often haunted him in his dreams, but which he had
never expected to hear again.
"Who is that!" he asked, feebly.
"It is I, Oliver--it is Lucy."
The wounded man moved slightly and the girl bending over him caught
the words, whispered brokenly to himself:
"I am dreaming."
But he was not dreaming.
Lucy Drayton's devotion probably brought him back from death and
saved his life.
In the hell of that hospital one man at least found the balm for his
wounds. When he knew how broken he was he offered Lucy her release.
Her reply was in the words of the English girl to the wounded Napier,
"If there is enough of you left to hold your soul, I will marry you."
As soon as he was sufficiently convalescent, they were married.
Lucy insisted that General Hampden should be informed, but the young

man knew his father's bitterness, and refused. He relied on securing his
consent later, and Lucy, fearing for her patient's life, and having
secured her own father's consent, yielded.
It was a mistake.
Oliver Hampden misjudged the depth of his father's feeling, and
General Hampden was mortally offended by his having married
without informing him.
Oliver adored his father and he sent him a present in token of his desire
for forgiveness; but the General had been struck deeply. The present
was returned. He wrote: "I want obedience; not sacrifice."
Confident of his wife's ability to overcome any obstacle, the young man
bided his time. His wounds, however, and his breach with his father
affected his health so much that he went with his wife to the far South,
where Major Drayton, now a colonel, had a remnant of what had once
been a fine property. Here, for a time, amid the live-oaks and magnolias
he appeared to improve. But his father's obdurate refusal to forgive his
disobedience preyed on his health, and just after the war closed, he died
a few months before his son was born.
In his last days he dwelt much on his father. He made excuses for him,
over which his wife simply tightened her lips, while her gray eyes
burned with deep resentment.
"He was brought up that way. He cannot help it. He never had anyone
to gainsay him. Do not be hard on him. And if he ever sues for pardon,
be merciful to him for my sake."
His end came too suddenly for his wife to notify his father in advance,
even if she would have done so; for he had been fading gradually and at
the last the flame had flared up a little.
Lucy Hampden was too upright a woman not to do what she believed
her duty, however contrary to her feelings it might be. So, although it
was a bitter thing to her, she wrote to inform General Hampden of his

son's death.
It happened by one of the malign chances of fortune that this letter
never reached its destination, General Hampden did not learn of
Oliver's death until some weeks later, when he heard of it by accident.
It was a terrible blow to him, for time was softening the asperity of his
temper, and he had just made up his mind to make friends with his son.
He attributed the failure to inform him of Oliver's illness and death to
the malignity of his wife.
Thus it happened that when her son was born, Lucy Hampden made no
announcement of his birth to the General, and he remained in ignorance
of it.

IV
The war closed, and about the only thing that appeared to remain
unchanged was the relation between General Hampden and Colonel
Drayton. Everything else underwent a change, for war eats up a land.
General Hampden, soured and embittered by his domestic troubles, but
stern in his