ife.

Roger Armstrong and his wife had been the spring and soul and center of
all.

And now Faith said: "Roger! mayn't we take our wedding journey?"

Not for a bridal holiday--not for gay change and pleasure--but for a
holy purpose, went they out from home.

Down among the wounded, and war-smitten. Bearing comfort of gifts, and
helpful words, and prayers. Doing whatsoever they found to do, now;
seeking and learning what they might best do, hereafter. Truly, God left
them not without a work. A noble ministry lay ready for them, at this
very threshold of their wedded life.

In the hospital at Georgetown, they found Nurse Sampson.

"I told you so," she said. "I knew it was coming. And the first gun
brought me down here to be ready. I've been out to Western Virginia; and
I came back here when we got the news of this. I shall follow round,
wherever the clouds roll."

In Washington, still another meeting awaited them.

Paul Rushleigh, in a Captain's uniform, came, one day, to the table of
their hotel.

The first gun had brought him, also, where he could be ready. He had
sailed for home, with his father, upon the reception, abroad, of the
tidings of the fall of Sumter.

"Your country will want you, now, my son," had been the words of the
brave and loyal gentleman. And, like another Abraham, he had set his
face toward the mount of sacrifice.

There was a new light in the young man's eye. A soul awakened there. A
purpose, better than any plan or hope of a mere happy living in the
earth.

He met his old friends frankly, generously; and, seemingly, without a
pang. They were all one now, in the sublime labor that, in their several
spheres, lay out before them.

"You were right, Faith," he said, as he stood with them, and spoke
briefly of the past, before they parted. "I shall be more of a man, than
if I'd had my first wish. This war is going to make a nation of men. I'm
free, now, to give my heart and hand to my country, as long as she needs
me. And by and by, perhaps, if I live, some woman may love me with the
sort of love you have for your husband. I feel now, how surely I should
have come to be dissatisfied with less. God bless you both!"

"God bless you, Paul!"

THE END.

* * * * * *

BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

MRS. ADELINE DUTTON (Train) WHITNEY, American novelist and poet, was
born in Boston, September 15, 1824, and was married to Seth D. Whitney,
of Milton, Mass., in