with the following sentences:

"Her whole appearance and manner were decidedly attractive, earnest,
and expressive. Her lecture was well arranged, logical, and
occasionally eloquent, persuasive, and pathetic."

That was the time when every woman with a tender heart and a chance to
show it for the benefit of the wounded soldiers served her
apprenticeship in some hospital, and Anna was one of them. With keen
sympathy she nursed and comforted the sick men, who told her freely
about their hardships and sufferings, as well as the motives which led
them to go into the army, and she learned their opinion of war and of
life on the battle-fields. From this experience she gained much
priceless material which she later used most successfully.

She was now beginning to be known as much for her youth and personal
charm as for the subject-matter of her lectures, and to her unbounded
joy in October, 1862, she received one hundred dollars and many
flattering press notices for a speech given before the Boston
Fraternity Lyceum. This success encouraged her to plan a series of
lectures to be given in various parts of the East, especially in New
England, from which she hoped to gain substantial results. But in
making her plans she had failed to reckon with the humor of the people
who under the stress of war had little interest even in the most
thrilling lectures, and she traveled from place to place with such
meager returns that she became perfectly disheartened, and, worse than
that, she was almost penniless.

When she had filled her last engagement of the series, for which she
was to receive the large sum of ten dollars, at Concord, New
Hampshire, she realized with a sinking heart that unless she could
turn the tide of her affairs quickly she must again seek another
occupation. The resolute girl was almost disheartened, and she
confessed to a friend later:

"No one knows how I felt and suffered that winter, penniless and
alone, with a scanty wardrobe, suffering with cold, weariness, and
disappointment. I wandered about on the trains day after day among
strangers, seeking employment for an honest living and failing to find
it. I would have gone home, but had not the means. I had borrowed
money to commence my journey, promising to remit soon; failing to do
so, I could not ask again. Beyond my Concord meeting, all was
darkness. I had no further plans."

With positive want staring her in the face, in debt for the trip which
she had t