a "company"--we are nothing if not military--for making
lint and getting stores of linen to supply the hospitals.

My name went down. If it hadn't, my spirit would have been wounded as with
sharp spears before night. Next came a little girl with a subscription
paper to get a flag for a certain company. The little girls, especially
the pretty ones, are kept busy trotting around with subscription lists. A
gentleman leaving for Richmond called to bid me good-bye. We had a serious
talk on the chances of his coming home maimed. He handed me a rose and
went off gaily, while a vision came before me of the crowd of cripples
that will be hobbling around when the war is over. It stayed with me all
the afternoon while I shook hands with one after another in their shining
gray and gold uniforms. Latest of all came little Guy, Mr. F.'s youngest
clerk, the pet of the firm as well as of his home, a mere boy of sixteen.
Such senseless sacrifices seem a sin. He chattered brightly, but lingered
about, saying good-bye. He got through it bravely until Edith's husband
incautiously said, "You didn't kiss your little sweetheart," as he always
called Ellie, who had been allowed to sit up. He turned suddenly, broke
into agonizing sobs and ran down the steps. I went right up to my room.

Suddenly the midnight stillness was broken by the sound of trumpets and
flutes. It was a serenade, by her lover, to the young lady across the
street. She leaves to-morrow for her home in Boston, he joins the
Confederate army in Virginia. Among the callers yesterday she came and
astonished us all by the change in her looks. She is the only person I
have yet seen who seems to realize the horror that is coming. Was this
pallid, stern-faced creature, the gentle, glowing Nellie whom we had
welcomed and admired when she came early last fall with her parents to
enjoy a Southern winter?

_May 10, 1861_.--I am tired and ashamed of myself. Last week I attended a
meeting of the lint society to hand in the small contribution of linen I
had been able to gather. We scraped lint till it was dark. A paper was
shown, entitled the "Volunteer's Friend," started by the girls of the high
school, and I was asked to help the girls with it. I positively declined.
To-day I was pressed into service to make red flannel cartridge-bags for
ten-inch columbiads. I basted while Mrs. S. sewed, and I felt ashamed to
think that I had not the moral courage to say, "I don't approve of your
war an