did not
know, poor Anne, when you framed those lofty purposes, that suffering is
just as hard to bear whether one is noble or ignoble, good or bad. In
the face of danger the heart is roused, and in the exaltation of
determination forgets its pain; it is the long monotony of dangerless
days that tries the spirit hardest.

A letter had come to her that morning, bearing a Boston postmark; the
address was in the neat, small handwriting of Jeanne-Armande's friend.
Anne, remembering that it was this Boston address which she had sent to
her grandaunt, opened the envelope eagerly. But it was only the formal
letter of a lawyer. Miss Vanhorn had died, on the nineteenth of June, in
Switzerland, and the lawyer wrote to inform "Miss Anne Douglas" that a
certain portrait, said in the will to be that of "Alida Clanssen," had
been bequeathed to her by his late client, and would be forwarded to her
address, whenever she requested it. Anne had expected nothing, not even
this. But an increased solitariness came upon her as she thought of
that cold rigid face lying under the turf far away in Switzerland--the
face of the only relative left to her.

The sun had disappeared; it was twilight. The few loiterers on the bank
were departing. The sound of carriage wheels roused her, and turning she
saw that a carriage had approached, and that three persons had alighted
and were coming toward her. They proved to be the principal of the
school and the president of the Aid Society, accompanied by one of her
associates. They had been to Anne's home, and learning where she was,
had followed her. It seemed that one of the city physicians had gone
southward a few days before to assist in the regimental hospitals on the
border; a telegraphic dispatch had just been received from him, urging
the Aid Society to send without delay three or four nurses to that
fever-cursed district, where men were dying in delirium for want of
proper care. It was the first personal appeal which had come to Weston;
the young Aid Society felt that it must be answered. But who could go?
Among the many workers at the Aid Rooms, few were free; wives, mothers,
and daughters, they could give an hour or two daily to the work of love,
but they could not leave their homes. One useful woman, a nurse by
profession, was already engaged; another, a lady educated and refined,
whose hair had been silvered as much by affliction as by age, had
offered to go. There were two, then; but they ough