s in fairest colors.

MISS JESSIE HOME.

Jessie Home was a native of Scotland. No ties bound her to this, her
adopted land. No relative of hers, resided upon its soil. She was
alone--far from kindred and the friends of her early youth. But the
country of her adoption had become dear to her. She loved it with the
ardor and earnestness which were a part of her nature, and she was
willing, nay anxious, to devote herself to its service.

At the commencement of the war Miss Home was engaged in a pleasant and
lucrative pursuit, which she abandoned that she might devote herself to
the arduous and ill-paid duties of a hospital nurse.

She entered the service early in the war, and became one of the corps of
Government nurses attached to the hospitals in the vicinity of
Washington. Like others, regularly enlisted, and under orders from Miss
Dix, the Government Superintendent of nurses, she was transferred from
point to point and from hospital to hospital, as the exigencies of the
service required. But she had only to be known to be appreciated, and
her companions, her patients, and the surgeons under whom she worked,
were equally attached to her, and loud in her praises. She entered into
her work with her whole soul--untiring, faithful, of a buoyant
temperament, she possessed a peculiar power of winning the love and
confidence of all with whom she came in contact.

She was quite dependent upon her own resources, and in giving herself to
the cause yielded up a profitable employment and with it her means of
livelihood. Yet she denied herself all luxuries, everything but the
merest necessities, that out of the pittance of pay received from the
Government, out of the forty cents per day with which her labors were
_rewarded_, she might save something for the wants of the suffering ones
under her care.

And be it remembered always, that in this work it was not alone the
well-born and the wealthy who made sacrifices, and gave grand gifts. Not
from the sacrifice of gauds and frippery did the humble charities of
these hired nurses come, but from the yielding up of a thousand needed
comforts for themselves, and the forgetfulness of their own wants, in
supplying the mightier wants of the suffering. It is impossible to
mention them with words of praise beyond their merit.

For about two years Miss Home labored thus untiringly and faithfully,
always alert, cheerful, active. During this time she had drawn to
herself hosts of at