ght. It sometimes mistook courteous
protest against its lavish gifts to such soldiers as were in no wise
needy as vicious and unhallowed criticism, and occasionally--_only_
occasionally--it grievously enlarged and exaggerated alleged slights
received at the hands of luckless officials. And then even those soft
and shapely hands could develop cat-like claws, and the soothing
voices take on an acid and scathing intonation, and the eyes, so ready
to moisten with pity and sympathy at the sight of suffering, could
shoot spiteful little fires at the objects of such divine displeasure,
and poor Stuyvesant's petulant words, wrung from him in a moment of
exasperation and never intended to reach the fair band of sisters of
the Cross, were piled high with additions, impolitic, impolite,
discourteous, impudent, intolerable, yes, even profane and
blasphemous.

Eleven of the twelve Red Cross nurses, packed three in a room aboard the
Sacramento, swore they would not have anything to do with Mr.
Stuyvesant. The twelfth, the one soldier's daughter in the band, said
nothing at all.

"Well, now, Miss Ray, _don't_ you think it was most discourteous, most
ungentlemanly, in him to send such a message?" demanded a flushed and
indignant young woman, one of the most energetic of the sisterhood, as
they stood together on the promenade deck in the shade of the canvas
awnings, shunning the glare of the August sun.

"Are you sure such a message was sent?" was the serious reply.

"Sure? Why, _certainly_ he did! and by his own servant, too!" was the
wrathful answer. "Didn't he, Miss Porter?"

And Miss Porter, the damsel appealed to, and one of the two nurses who
sent in their message from the office, promptly assented. Miss Ray
looked unconvinced.

"Servants, you know, sometimes deliver messages that were never sent,"
she answered with quiet decision. "We have seen quite a little of that
in the army, and it is my father's rule to get all the facts before
passing judgment. My brother thought Mr. Stuyvesant's attendant
garrulous and meddlesome."

"But I asked him if he was sure that was what Mr. Stuyvesant said,"
persisted Miss Porter, bridling, "and he answered they were just the
very words."

"And still I doubt his having sent them as a message," said Miss Ray,
with slight access of color, and that evening she walked the deck long
with a happy subaltern and added to her unpopularity.

There were several well-informed and pleasant women, m