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“Now you run on out, and ask Georgie to come in.”
    George Gwathmey, tall and the most studious of the general’s nephews, loved to talk by the hour with his uncle about the biography books they shared, biographies of kings and conquerors. But this evening the lad sat saying little, politely trying to keep his eyes from straying to that part of the bedsheet under which the left leg should have been outlined, apparently awed beyond words of the ordeal his uncle had survived in the afternoon. The general tried in vain to talk of Frederick the Second to put the young man at ease, but it was with little success and the effort was taxing on his mind, which seemed now to yearn toward wandering and reverie. The last visitor was another favorite nephew, George Rogers Clark Sullivan, who was anything but tongue-tied, and showed promise of talking the old soldier into his grave. Lucy sent the youth away before long, and the general half-dozed for a while. He dreamed of dancing with young ladies in a room lit by scores of candles, a room which sometimes seemed to be in Williamsburg, sometimes in St. Louis, and sometimes in Kaskaskia, though all the young ladies he danced with in the dream had the same face, with the same dark and downcast eyes. Then he awoke, the music wasstill playing outside, and beyond the barrier of pain in his thigh he imagined he could feel his foot moving to the dance.
    Then he remembered that the foot was no longer there. Awakening to that knowledge brought back an awful poignancy. As a young man he had keenly enjoyed dancing, and almost all of his genteel memories, the few he had, involved occasions when there had been dances. He thought now about the absence of the leg, and wondered what had been done with it. But he didn’t ask. He was sure that such a question would shock Lucy too much.
    She, who had been watching him closely, leaned near, her chair creaking, and dabbed away tears that were coursing onto his temples. She realized that she had never before in her life seen a tear on his face.
    A messenger came, bringing the compliments of Senator Breckenridge with a promise that he would come to visit in a few days. Lucy thanked him, and as it was too late for him to return home, went out to arrange bedding for him on the front porch.
    “George,” she said on returning, “this place is so small. And so remote from everyplace. We shall have couriers and musicians camped all over the premises tonight There’s even a party of Indians hunkered off the porch, waiting to see you.”
    “Are there now! What tribe, d’you know?”
    “Several. I don’t know which.”
    “Is Two Lives still here?”
    “I didn’t see him.”
    “In any case, say I should like to talk with them. Have them come up. And Dick Lovell, too.”
    “Not tonight, no indeed. I forbid it. You have to sleep.”
    “Aye, I reckon. But come morning, then. Say I would like to talk with them then. And the other musicians, too, them as stays the night.”
    “Yes, my dear. I’ll tell them.”
    There was silence for a moment and she stood looking down at him in the candlelight. He turned his head on the pillow, his eyes on her face. “‘My dear,’ is it? By heaven, Lucy, you’ve never called me that …” He settled back, and gazed at the ceiling. “Nor has anyone, I recollect, since Mother. Rest her soul. Well, it has a rare sound to my ears.” He blinked rapidly. He heard the chair creak as she sat down.
    “Well, there is a reason. All you Clark boys, I’ll swear, you’re scarcely the kind to inspire endearments. A clan ofblamed heroes, the lot of you. Two generals. Two captains. Two lieutenants.” She shook her head and smiled. “And only Jonathan and William ever had the good sense to settle down and marry. I’ll wager
they
hear sweet words now and then.”
    “Aye,” he whispered. “But you know, Lucy, I’d have married, had things been a little different.”
    “Mhm. Well, you should’ve. Ought to have this place full