autiful Southern women
moved with soft tread and eager hands.

A pretty girl of sixteen, with wistful blue eyes, approached a rough,
wounded soldier. She carried a towel and tin basin of water.

"Can't I do something for you?" she asked the man in gray.

He smiled through his black beard into her sweet young face:

"No'm, I reckon not--"

"Can't I wash your face?" the girl pleaded.

The wounded man softly laughed.

"Waal, hit's been washed fourteen times to-day, but I'll stand it again,
if you say so!"

The girl laughed and blushed and passed quickly on.

When all the grapes and peaches had been distributed save in one basket
Socola looked at these enquiringly.

"And these, Miss Jennie--they're the finest of the lot?"

The girl smiled tenderly.

"They're for revenge--"

"Revenge?"

"Yes. The next ward is full of Yankees. I'm going to heap coals of fire
on their heads--come--"

The last luscious peach and bunch of grapes had been distributed and the
last soldier in blue had murmured:

"God bless you, Miss!"

Jennie paused at the door and waved her hand in friendly adieu to the
hungry, homesick eyes that still followed her.

She brushed a tear from her cheek and whispered:

"That's for my Big Brother. I'll tell him about it some day. He's still
in the Union--but he's mine!"

She drew her lace handkerchief from her belt, dried her tears and looked
up with a laugh.

"I'm not so loyal after all--am I?"

"No. But I've seen something bigger than loyalty," he breathed softly,
"something divine--"

"Come," said the girl lightly. "I wish you to meet the most wonderful
woman in Richmond. She's in charge of this hospital--"

Socola laughed skeptically.

"I've already seen the most wonderful woman in Richmond, Miss Jennie--"

"But she _is_--really--the most wonderful woman in all the South--I
think in the world--Mrs. Arthur Hopkins--"

"Really?"

"She has done what no man ever has anyhow--sold all her property for two
hundred thousand dollars and given it to the Confederacy. And not
satisfied with giving all she had--she gave herself."

Socola followed the girl in silence into the little office of the
hospital and found himself gasping with astonishment at the sight of the
delicate woman who extended her hand in friendly greeting.

She was so perfect an image of his own mother it was uncanny--the same
straight, firm mouth, the strong, intellectual forehead with the heavy,
straight-lined eyebr