d him, I'm glad he went from the
front ranks. Oh, those poor women whose husbands ran away, and were
killed, too!"

She seemed to be so comforted by that one thought! It was a strange
trait in the little creature; I could not quite fathom it.

After this, she came down-stairs and went about among us, busying
herself in various little ways. She never went to the grave-yard; but
whenever she was a little tired, I was sure to find her sitting in her
room with her eyes on that cap and coat and sword. Letters of condolence
poured in, but she would not read them or answer them, and they all fell
into my hands. I could not wonder; for, of all cruel conventionalities,
visits and letters of condolence seem to me the most cruel. If friends
can be useful in lifting off the little painful cares that throng in the
house of death till its presence is banished, let them go and do their
work quietly and cheerfully; but to make a call or write a note, to
measure your sorrow and express theirs, seems to me on a par with
pulling a wounded man's bandages off and probing his hurt, to hear him
cry out and hear yourself say how bad it must be!

Laura Lane was admitted, for Frank's sake, as she had been his closest
and dearest relative. The day she came, Josey had a severe headache, and
looked wretchedly. Laura was shocked, and showed it so obviously, that,
had there been any real cause for her alarm, I should have turned her
out of the room without ceremony, almost before she was fairly in it. As
soon as she left, Josey looked at me and smiled.

"Laura thinks I am going to die," said she; "but I'm not. If I could,
I wouldn't, Sue; for poor father and mother want me, and so will the
soldiers by-and-by." A weary, heart-breaking look quivered in her face
as she went on, half whispering,--"But I should--I _should_ like to see
him!"

In September she went away. I had expected it ever since she spoke of
the soldiers needing her. Mrs. Bowen went to the sea-side for her annual
asthma. Mr. Bowen went with Josephine to Washington. There, by some
talismanic influence, she got admission to the hospitals, though she
was very pretty, and under thirty. I think perhaps her pale face and
widow's-dress, and her sad, quiet manner, were her secret of success.
She worked here like a sprite; nothing daunted or disgusted her. She
followed the army to Yorktown, and nursed on the transport-ships. One
man said, I was told, that it was "jes' like havin' an apple-t