From one straw bed to another she passed with comforting words that gave them hope, with skilled and tender hands that soothed their pain.

They kissed the hem of her black dress, they called her their guardian angel, as the beautiful creature moved among them, and bent over their hard pillows her gentle, compassionate face.

"I will be with you when the Germans come," she said, as she left them to return to her unwritten letter.

"Courage, my poor fellows! you are not deserted by your nurse." "Courage, madam!" the men replied; "and God bless you!" If the firing had been resumed at that moment--if a shell had struck her dead in the act of succoring the afflicted, what Christian judgment would have hesitated to declare that there was a place for this woman in heaven?
But if the war ended and left her still living, where was the place for her on earth?
Where were her prospects?
Where was her home?
She returned to the letter.

Instead, however, of seating herself to write, she stood by the table, absently looking down at the morsel of paper.
A strange fancy had sprung to life in her mind on re-entering the room; she herself smiled faintly at the extravagance of it.