Going Home

Summoned by Irving Stanley, she had come on to Washington to meet, not a
living husband, but a husband dead, and while there had learned that
Mrs. Worthington, Hugh, and Alice were all in Georgetown, whither she
hastened at once, eager to meet the mother whom she had never yet met as
such. Immediately after the discovery of her parentage, she had written
to Kentucky, but the letter had not reached its destination,
consequently no one but Hugh knew how near she was; and he had only
learned it a few days before the battle, when he had, by accident, a few
moments' conversation with Dr. Richards, whom he had purposely avoided.
He was talking of Adah, and the practicability of sending for her, when
she arrived at the private boarding house to which he had been removed.

The particulars of that interview between the mother and her daughter we
cannot describe, as no one witnessed it save God; but Adah's face was
radiant with happiness, and her soft, brown eyes beaming with joy when
it was ended, and she went next to where Hugh was waiting for her.

"Oh, Hugh, my noble brother!" was all she could say, as she wound her
arms around his neck and pressed her fair cheek against his own,
forgetting, in those moments of perfect bliss, all the sorrow, all the
anguish of the past.

Nor was it until Hugh said to her: "The doctor was in that battle. Did
he escaped unharmed?" that a shadow dimmed the sunshine flooding her
pathway that autumn morning.