r if she would
return with him as his wife; and Myrtle answered, with as much
willingness to submit as a maiden might fairly show under such
circumstances, that she would do his bidding. Thereupon, with the
shortest possible legal notice, Father Pemberton was sent for, and the
ceremony was performed in the presence of a few witnesses in the large
parlor at The Poplars, which was adorned with flowers, and hung round
with all the portraits of the dead members of the family, summoned as
witnesses to the celebration. One witness looked on with unmoved
features, yet Myrtle thought there was a more heavenly smile on her faded
lips than she had ever seen before beaming from the canvas,--it was Ann
Holyoake, the martyr to her faith, the guardian spirit of Myrtle's
visions, who seemed to breathe a holier benediction than any words--even
those of the good old Father Pemberton himself--could convey.

They went back together to the camp. From that period until the end of
the war, Myrtle passed her time between the life of the tent and that of
the hospital. In the offices of mercy which she performed for the sick
and the wounded and the dying, the dross of her nature seemed to be
burned away. The conflict of mingled lives in her blood had ceased. No
lawless impulses usurped the place of that serene resolve which had grown
strong by every exercise of its high prerogative. If she had been called
now to die for any worthy cause, her race would have been ennobled by a
second martyr, true to the blood of her who died under the cruel Queen.

Many sad sights she saw in the great hospital where she passed some
months at intervals,--one never to be forgotten. An officer was brought
into the ward where she was in attendance. "Shot through the
lungs,--pretty nearly gone."

She went softly to his bedside. He was breathing with great difficulty;
his face was almost convulsed with the effort, but she recognized him in
a moment; it was Murray Bradshaw,--Captain Bradshaw, as she knew by the
bars on his coat flung upon the bed where he had just been laid.

She addressed him by name, tenderly as if he had been a dear brother; she
saw on his face that hers were to be the last kind words he would ever
hear.

He turned his glazing eyes upon her. "Who are you?" he said in a feeble
voice.

"An old friend," she answered; "you knew me as Myrtle Hazard."

He started. "You by my bedside! You caring for me!--for me, that burned
the title to