Jeffery Farnol

“ Miss Priscilla paused in her sewing, and looked up at him with her youthful smile:
“Must you go—so soon, Sergeant? Then Good-bye,—until to-morrow,” and she laid her very small hand in his big palm. The Sergeant stared down at it as though he were greatly minded to raise it to his lips, instead of doing which, he dropped it, suddenly, and turned to Bellew:
“Sir, I am—proud to have met you. Sir, there is a poor crippled soldier as I know,—his cottage is very small, and humble sir, but if you ever feel like—dropping in on him, sir,—by day or night, he will be—honoured, sir, honoured! ”

“ Miss Anthea,—bless her dear heart!—calls me her aunt, but I’m not really— Oh dear no! I’m no relation at all! But I’ve lived with her long enough to feel as if I was her aunt, and her uncle, and her father, and her mother—all rolled into one,—though I should be rather small to be so many,—shouldn’t I?” and she laughed so gaily, and unaffectedly, that Bellew laughed too.
“I tell you all this,” she went on, keeping pace to her flying needle, “because I have taken a fancy to you—on the spot! I always like, or dislike a person—on the spot,—first impressions you know! ”

“ Bellew!”
“Why then, does he come every day, at the same hour?”
“Every day!” nodded Miss Priscilla, “it has become a matter of habit with him.”
“Ah?” said Bellew, smiling.
“If you were to ask me why he comes, I should answer that I fancy it is to—look at the peaches. Dear me, Mr. Bellew! what a very foolish old soldier he is, to be sure!” Saying which, pretty, bright-eyed Miss Priscilla, laughed again, folded up her work, settled it in the basket with a deft little pat, and, rising, took a small, crutch stick from where it had lain concealed, and then, Bellew saw that she was lame. ”