er for a discharge! now that you are in the
way of promotion and the war is over, will you take advantage of it?"

"Decidedly, yes! for though I am said to have acquitted myself passably
well at Chapultepec----"

"Gloriously, Traverse! You won your colors gloriously!"

"Yet for all that my true mission is not to break men's bones, but to
set them when broken. Not to take men's lives, but to save them when
endangered! So to-morrow morning, please Providence, I shall present
this order to General Butler and apply for my discharge."

"And you will set out immediately for home?"

The face of Traverse suddenly changed.

"I should like to do so! Oh, how I should like to see my dear mother
and Clara, if only for a day! but I must not indulge the longing of my
heart. I must not go home until I can do so with honor!"

"And can you not do so now? You, who triumphed over all your personal
enemies and who won your colors at Chapultepec?"

"No, for all this was in my legitimate profession! Nor will I present
myself at home until, by the blessing of the Lord, I have done what I
set out to do, and established myself in a good practice. And so, by
the help of heaven, I hope within one week to be on my way to New
Orleans to try my fortune in that city."

"To New Orleans! And a new malignant fever of some horrible, unknown
type, raging there!" exclaimed Herbert.

"So much the more need of a physician! Herbert, I am not the least
uneasy on the subject of infection! I have a theory for its
annihilation."

"I never saw a clever young professional man without a theory!" laughed
Herbert.

The drum was now heard beating the tattoo, and the friends separated
with hearts full of revived hope.

The next morning Traverse presented the order of the Secretary to the
Commander-in-Chief and received his discharge.

And then, after writing long, loving and hopeful letters to his mother
and his betrothed, and entreating the former to try to find out who was
the secret benefactor who had sent him such timely aid, Traverse took
leave of his friends, and set out for the Southern Queen of Cities,
once more to seek his fortune.

Meantime the United States army continued to occupy the City of Mexico,
through the whole of the autumn and winter.

General Butler, who temporarily succeeded the illustrious Scott in the
chief command, very wisely arranged the terms of an armistice with the
enemy that was intended to last two months from the begi