your bonnet on again,
child; a brisk walk will be the best thing for you; try and interest
yourself in what you see passing round you. From what I hear the
fighting will not begin until to-morrow morning, and it must be later in
the day before the wounded begin to come in. So, though you can return
and take charge again to-night if you like, there will be really no
occasion for you to do so until to-morrow, say at twelve o'clock; but
mind, unless you are looking a good deal better, I shall send you off
again; my assistants will need all their nerve for the work we are
likely to have on hand. Indeed, I must beg you to do so, Miss Brander,
nothing is so trying as sitting in idleness. I shall really want your
services to-morrow, and for my own sake, as well as yours, I must insist
upon my orders being obeyed."

Mary Brander conscientiously tried to carry out the doctor's
instructions, walked briskly along the Boulevards, and then going up the
Champs Elysees, and turning to the left, went to the edge of the plateau
above the river, and there sat down on a bench and looked over the
country to the south. There were many groups of people gathered at this
point; most of them, doubtless, like herself, had friends in the army
gathered outside the walls, and were too anxious and restless to remain
indoors; but although her eyes were fixed on the country beyond the
forts, Mary Brander did not take in the scene. She was thinking, as she
had been for the last two days, and was full of regrets for the past.
She had not altogether admitted this to herself, but she knew now that
it was so, although she had fought hard and angrily with herself before
she owned it.

"He was right," she said to herself bitterly, "when he said that I had
not yet discovered that I had a heart as well as a head. We are
miserable creatures, we women. A man can go straight on his way through
life--he can love, he can marry, but it makes no change in his course. I
know I read somewhere that love is but an incident in a man's life,
while it is a woman's all, or something of that sort. I laughed at the
idea then as absurd--now that it is too late I see it is true. He loved
me, or, at least he liked me so much that he thought it was love. I
laughed at him, I told him he was not worthy of a woman's love. He went
away. Here was an end of it, as far as he was concerned. He lost his
property and took to work nobly, and when we met he was just the same as
he had been