nce of ghastly lists of articles required for the
wounded and dying. At least those she loved were not confronting cannon.
Those in charge of the rooms soon learned to expect her, this young
teacher, a stranger in Weston, who with a settled look of sadness on her
fair face had become the most diligent worker there. She came more
regularly after a time, for the school had closed, the long vacation
begun.

On Sunday, the 21st of July, Anne was in church; it was a warm day; fans
waved, soft air came in and played around the heads of the people, who,
indolent with summer ease, leaned back comfortably, and listened with
drowsy peacefulness to the peaceful sermon. At that very moment, on a
little mill-stream near Washington, men were desperately fighting the
first great battle of the war, the Sunday battle of Bull Run. The
remnant of the Northern army poured over Long Bridge into the capital
during all that night, a routed, panic-stricken mob.

The North had suffered a great defeat; the South had gained a great
victory. And both sides paused.

The news flashed over the wires and into Weston, and the town was
appalled. Never in the four long years that followed was there again a
day so filled with stern astonishment to the entire North as that Monday
after Bull Run. The Aid Rooms, where Anne worked during her leisure
hours, were filled with helpers now; all hearts were excited and in
earnest. West Virginia was the field to which their aid was sent, a
mountain region whose streams were raised in an hour into torrents, and
whose roads were often long sloughs of despond, through which the
soldiers of each side gloomily pursued each other by turns, the slowness
of the advancing force only equalled by that of the pursued, which was
encountering in front the same disheartening difficulties. The men in
hospital on the edges of this region, worn out with wearying marches,
wounded in skirmishes, stricken down by the insidious fever which haunts
the river valleys, suffered as much as those who had the names of great
battles wherewith to identify themselves; but they lacked the glory.

One sultry evening, when the day's various labor was ended, Anne, having
made a pretense of eating in her lonely room, went across to the bank of
the lake to watch the sun set in the hazy blue water, and look northward
toward the island. She was weary and sad: where were now the resolution
and the patience with which she had meant to crown her life? You