tle girl sat on the bed, and
every now and then put forth a hand and timidly stroked her father's
clay-cold wrist. On the floor, on a mattress matching the one on which
the boy lay, was stretched a gaunt giant from some backwoods or mountain
clearing. Margaret knelt beside him and he smiled up at her. "I ain't
much hurt, and I ain't sufferin' to amount to nothin'. Ef this pesky
butternut wouldn't stick in this here hurt place--" She cut the shirt
from a sabre wound with the scissors hanging at her waist, then bringing
water bathed away the grime and dried blood. "You're right," she said.
"It isn't much of a cut. It will soon heal." They spoke in whispers, not
to disturb the central group. "But you don't look easy. You are still
suffering. What is it?"

"It ain't nothing. It's my foot, that a shell kind of got in the way of.
But don't you tell anybody--for fear they might want to cut it off,
ma'am."

She looked and made a pitying sound. The officer on the bed had now
breathed his last. She brought the unneeded surgeon to the crushed
ankle, summoned to help him another of the women in the house, then
moved to the four-poster and aided the tearless widow, young and soon
again to become a mother, to lay the dead calm and straight. The little
girl began to shake and shudder. She took her in her arms and carried
her out of the room. She found Miriam helping in the storeroom. "Get the
child's doll and take her into the garden for a little while. She is
cold as ice; if she begins to cry don't stop her. When she is better,
give her to Hannah and you go sit beside the boy who is lying on the
floor in the chamber. If he wakes, give him water, but don't let him
lift himself. He looks like Will."

In the hall a second surgeon met her. "Madam, will you come help? I've
got to take off a poor fellow's leg." They entered a room together--the
parlour this time, with the windows flung wide and the afternoon
sunlight lying in pools among the roses of the carpet. Two mahogany
tables had been put together, and the soldier lay atop, the crushed leg
bared and waiting. The surgeon had an assistant and the young man's
servant was praying in a corner. Margaret uttered a low, pained
exclamation. This young lieutenant had been well liked last winter in
Winchester. He had been much at this house. He had a good voice and she
had played his accompaniments while he sang--oh, the most sentimental of
ditties! Miriam had liked him very well--they had r