her; and Ailsa smiled and
kissed her lightly on the cheek; and the blood came back to the
girl's face in a passion of gratitude which even the terror of
death could not lessen or check.

"Ailsa--darling--" she whispered; then shuddered in the violence of
an explosion that shattered the window-glass beside her,

"We're taking them to the old barns, Letty," said Ailsa, steadying
her voice. "Will you take charge here while I go to Colonel Arran?"

"They've taken him out," whispered Letty. "That ward is on fire.
Everybody is out. W-what a cruel thing for our boys! Some of them
were getting well! Can you come now?"

"As soon as they carry out young Spencer. He's the last. . . .
Look from the window! They're trying to put out the fire with
water in buckets. O--h!" as a shell struck and the flame flashed
out through a geyser of sand and smoke.

"Come," murmured Letty. "I will stay if there is anything to stay
for----"

"No, dear; we can go. Give me your hand; this smoke is horrible.
Everything is on fire, I think. . . . Hurry, Letty!"

She stumbled, half suffocated, but Letty kept her hand fast and
guided her to the outer air.

A company of cavalry, riding hard, passed in a whirlwind of dust.
After them, clanking, thudding, pounding, tore a battery, horses on
a dead run,

The west wing of the seminary was on fire; billows of sooty smoke
rolled across the roof and blew downward over the ground where the
forms of soldiers could be seen toiling to and fro with buckets.

Infantry now began to arrive, crowding the main road on the double
quick, mounted officers cantering ahead. Long lines of them were
swinging out east and west across the country, where a battery went
into action wrapped in torrents of smoke.

Bullets swarmed, singing above and around in every key, and the
distracting racket of the shrapnel shells became continuous.

Ailsa and Letty ran, stooping, into the lane where the stretchers
were being hurried across the little footbridge. As they crossed
they saw a dead artilleryman lying in the water, a crimson thread
wavering from his head to the surface. It was Arthur Wye; and
Letty knew him, and halted, trembling; but Ailsa called to her in a
frightened voice, for, confused by the smoke, they had come out in
the rear of a battery among the caissons, and the stretchers had
turned to the right, filing down into the hollow where the barns
stood on the edge of a cedar grove.

Already men wer