health which had greatly improved during her stay in the salubrious
climate of San Jose, where the temperature ranges at about 70 deg.
Fahrenheit the entire year, again yielded before the frosty rigors of a
winter in the Pine Tree State, and for a long time she was forced to
lead a very secluded life. She devoted herself to reading, to the study
of the French and German languages, and to teaching the Spanish, of
which she had become mistress during her residence in Costa Rica.

In the spring of 1861, she went to East Cambridge, where she obtained
the situation of translator for the New England Glass Company,
translating commercial letters from English to Spanish, or from Spanish
to English as occasion required.

This she would undoubtedly have found a pleasant and profitable
occupation, but the boom of the first gun fired at Sumter upon the old
flag stirred to a strange restlessness the spirit of the granddaughter
of one who starved to death on board the British Prison Ship Jersey,
during the revolution. She felt the earnest desire, but saw not the way
to personal action, until the first disastrous battle of Bull Run
prompted her to immediate effort.

She wrote to Dr. G. S. Palmer, Surgeon of the Fifth Regiment Maine
Volunteers, an old and valued friend, to offer her services in caring
for the sick and wounded. His reply was quaint and characteristic.
"There is no law at this end of the route, to prevent your coming; but
the law of humanity requires your immediate presence."

As soon as possible she started for the seat of war, and on the 1st of
September, 1861, commenced her services as nurse in the hospital of the
Fifth Maine Regiment.

The regiment had been enlisted to a great extent from the vicinity of
Gardiner, Maine, where, as we have said, she had taught for several
years, and among the soldiers both sick and well were a number of her
old pupils.

The morning after her arrival, Dr. Palmer called at her tent, and
invited her to accompany him through the hospital tents. There were four
of these, filled with fever cases, the result of exposure and hardship
at and after the battle of Bull Run.

In the second tent, were a number of patients delirious from the fever,
whom the surgeon proposed to send to Alexandria, to the General
Hospital. To one of these she spoke kindly, asking if he would like to
have anything; with a wild look, and evidently impressed with the idea
that he was about to be ordered on a long