With a gesture, she commanded the girl to silence, and the two tiptoed from the room.
When they were outside, and Auntie Sue had cautiously closed the door, she faced the speechless Judy with a deliciously defiant air that could not wholly hide her lovely confusion.
"I--I--was thinking, Judy, how he--how he--might have been--my son." "Your 'son'!" ejaculated the girl.

"Why, ma'm, you-all ain't never even been married, as I've ever hearn tell, have you ?" Auntie Sue drew her thin shoulders proudly erect, and, lifting her fine old face, answered the challenging question with splendid spirit: "No, I have never been married; but I might have been; and if I had, I suppose I could have had a son, couldn't I ?" The vanquished Judy retreated to the kitchen, where, in safety, she sank into a chair, convulsed with laughter, which she instinctively muffled in her apron.
Then came the day when the man, weak and worn with his struggle, looked up at his gentle old nurse with the light of sanity in his deep blue eyes.

Very tired eyes they were, and filled with painful memories,--filled, too, with worshipping gratitude and wonder.
She smiled down at him with delighted triumph, and drawing a chair close beside the bed, seated herself and placed her soft hand on his where it lay on the coverlid.
"You are much better, this morning," she said cheerily.

"You will soon be all right, now." And as she looked into the eyes that regarded hers so questioningly, there was in her face and manner no hint of doubt, or pretense, or reproach;--only confidence and love.
He spoke slowly, as if feeling for words: "I have been in Hell; and you--you have brought me out.

Why did you do it ?" "Because you are mine," she answered, with her low chuckling laugh.