rne by one for whom the chief thing yet remained, but she had
seen this go, and so she waited, with her pensive smile, for the moment
when she too might follow. If Betty were not looking she would put her
untasted food aside; but the girl soon found this out, and watched her
every mouthful with imploring eyes.

"Oh, mamma, do it to please me," she entreated.

"Well, give it back, my dear," Mrs. Ambler answered, complaisant as always,
and when Betty triumphantly declared, "You feel better now--you know you
do, you dearest," she responded readily:--

"Much better, darling; give me some straw to plait--I have grown to like to
have my hands busy. Your old bonnet is almost gone, so I shall plait you
one of this and trim it with a piece of ribbon Aunt Lydia found yesterday
in the attic."

"I don't mind going bareheaded, if you will only eat."

"I was never a hearty eater. Your father used to say that I ate less than a
robin. It was the custom for ladies to have delicate appetites in my day,
you see; and I remember your grandma's amazement when Miss Pokey
Mickleborough was asked at our table what piece of chicken she preferred,
and answered quite aloud, 'Leg, if you please.' She was considered very
indelicate by your grandma, who had never so much as tasted any part except
the wing."

She sat, gentle and upright, in her rosewood chair, her worn silk dress
rustling as she crossed her feet, her beautiful hands moving rapidly with
the straw plaiting. "I was brought up very carefully, my dear," she added,
turning her head with its shining bands of hair a little silvered since the
beginning of the war. "'A girl is like a flower,' your grandpa always said.
'If a rough wind blows near her, her bloom is faded.' Things are different
now--very different."

"But this is war," said Betty.

Mrs. Ambler nodded over the slender braid.

"Yes, this is war," she added with her wistful smile, and a moment
afterward looked up again to ask in a dazed way:--

"What was the last battle, dear? I can't remember."

Betty's glance sought the lawn outside where the warm May sunshine fell in
shafts of light upon the purple lilacs.

"They are fighting now in the Wilderness," she answered, her thoughts
rushing to the famished army closed in the death grapple with its enemy.
"Dan got a letter to me and he says it is like fighting in a jungle, the
vines are so thick they can't see the other side. He has to aim by ear
instead of sight."

Mrs. A