But oh! so
far away! and this picture which daily I draw from beneath the pillow of
my sick couch must alone serve to replace the companionship of her face
and voice.
I can permit myself in this last record of an unrecoverable past to
describe a treasured incident just before I left the Dodan home with my
father. I was coming out of my room when I found Miss Dodan also
emerging from her own bedroom at the opposite end of an upper hall. We
met and I said: "Miss Dodan, it is a treacherous confession, but I wish
you were going back with us, or that my father would stay a little
longer here. I shall miss you."
"Yes," she answered. "Aren't you a good nurse?"
"Oh, I think you need not misunderstand me," I insisted.
"Misunderstanding is rather an English trait, you Americans say," she
retorted.
"But in this case," I continued, "I hoped any disadvantages of that sort
would be overcome by your own feelings."
She blushed and looked quite dauntlessly into my eyes: "You mean," she
inquired, "that you are sorry to leave me?"
My face was very red, I knew, and I felt a puzzling sensation in my
throat, but I did not hesitate: "Of course, I am sorry to leave you,
more sorry than I can say, but I fear more, that leaving you may mean
losing you."
This time confusion seemed struggling with a pleased mirth in her face,
and with a laugh and a quick movement toward the stairway she exclaimed:
"Well, Americans, they say, never lose what they really care to win.
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