a cocked
hat, above the waist, and a tipsy squire below; while his horse stood
like an opera dancer, on one leg, in a high, but somewhat remarkable
wind, which blew his mane one way and his massive tail the other.

"Hurly-burly House, ma'am!" called a voice, startling me from my
reverie, as we stopped before a great pile of buildings, with a flag
flying before it, sentinels at the door, and a very trying quantity of
men lounging about. My heart beat rather faster than usual, and it
suddenly struck me that I was very far from home; but I descended with
dignity, wondering whether I should be stopped for want of a
countersign, and forced to pass the night in the street. Marching
boldly up the steps, I found that no form was necessary, for the men
fell back, the guard touched their caps, a boy opened the door, and, as
it closed behind me, I felt that I was fairly started, and Nurse
Periwinkle's Mission was begun.

CHAPTER III

A DAY.

"They've come! they've come! hurry up, ladies--you're wanted."

"Who have come? the rebels?"

This sudden summons in the gray dawn was somewhat startling to a three
days' nurse like myself, and, as the thundering knock came at our door,
I sprang up in my bed, prepared

"To gird my woman's form,
And on the ramparts die,"

if necessary; but my room-mate took it more coolly, and, as she began a
rapid toilet, answered my bewildered question,--

"Bless you, no child; it's the wounded from Fredericksburg; forty
ambulances are at the door, and we shall have our hands full in fifteen
minutes."

"What shall we have to do?"

"Wash, dress, feed, warm and nurse them for the next three months, I
dare say. Eighty beds are ready, and we were getting impatient for the
men to come. Now you will begin to see hospital life in earnest, for
you won't probably find time to sit down all day, and may think
yourself fortunate if you get to bed by midnight. Come to me in the
ball-room when you are ready; the worst cases are always carried there,
and I shall need your help."

So saying, the energetic little woman twirled her hair into a button at
the back of her head, in a "cleared for action" sort of style, and
vanished, wrestling her way into a feminine kind of pea-jacket as she
went.

I am free to confess that I had a realizing sense of the fact that my
hospital bed was not a bed of roses just then, or the prospect before
me one of unmingled rapture. My three days' experiences had beg