If she had seen Dan's face when Bess went to say good-bye, her maternal eye would have discovered far more than the unconscious girl did.

Mrs Jo trembled lest he should betray himself; but he had learned self-control in a stern school, and would have got through the hard moment bravely, only, when he took both hands, saying heartily: 'Good-bye, Princess.

If we don't meet again, remember your old friend Dan sometimes,' she, touched by his late danger and the wistful look he wore, answered with unusual warmth: 'How can I help it, when you make us all so proud of you?
God bless your mission, and bring you safely home to us again!' As she looked up at him with a face full of frank affection and sweet regret, all that he was losing rose so vividly before him that Dan could not resist the impulse to take the 'dear goldy head' between his hands and kiss it, with a broken 'Good-bye'; then hurried back to his room, feeling as if it were the prison-cell again, with no glimpse of heaven's blue to comfort him.
This abrupt caress and departure rather startled Bess; for she felt with a girl's quick instinct that there was something in that kiss unknown before, and looked after him with sudden colour in her cheeks and new trouble in her eyes.

Mrs Jo saw it, and fearing a very natural question answered it before it was put.
'Forgive him, Bess.

He has had a great trouble, and it makes him tender at parting with old friends; for you know he may never come back from the wild world he is going to.' 'You mean the fall and danger of death ?' asked Bess, innocently.
'No, dear; a greater trouble than that.