service yesterday."

"To where?"

"Virginia."

About a mile from the camp live two childless old people who then were
keepers of the toll-gate on the road into town. I am ashamed to say that
I have forgotten their name, it being a common one; but I remember what
their lives were, and I am sure that they who carry the record of every
man's hours to add to the Great Reckoning must find in their hackneyed
name a meaning even to them of great truth and a rare charity. The old
lady told me afterwards of her finding Ellen sitting on the roadside
near her well, her mind quite gone, yet very gentle and grave even in
her madness. They took her home to the toll-gate house, and kept her for
two or three days, in which they learned her story.

"My husband," she said, "telegraphed to the Colonel of the regiment and
found it was delayed at Bellaire; but as Ellen's health was in so
critical a state, they thought it best to say nothing about her to her
brother, and I was resolved that she should not go on. We offered (what
we had never done before to any one) to adopt her, and treat her as our
own child. People coming in and seeing the awkward country-body would
wonder why we set such a sudden store by her, but in a little while
they'd see as we did. I think her pure soul showed right through her
homely face. Then she trusted people as free as a child; so everybody
was kind to her. But I used to think there was but two people real to
her in the world,--the 'Lord Jesus,' and 'Joe.'"

When Ellen was herself again, however, she insisted upon going on, and
fell into so restless and wild a state that the gate-keeper and his wife
were forced to yield. Her carpet-bag was repacked with all the additions
which the old lady's motherly ingenuity could suggest, her pocket-book
well filled, and then, having found her a companion to Bellaire, the
Colonel was again telegraphed to, and Ellen herself was the bearer of
letters from the Governor of Ohio and her new friends, in the hope of
obtaining a furlough for Carrol. With a prudent after-thought, too, the
gate-keeper's wife wrote Ellen's name and her own address upon a card
which she fastened to the faithful little basket, in case of any
accident; and then, with many anxious looks and blessings, Ellen again
started on her journey.

At Zanesville, her companion, finding some unexpected business which
would detain him in that place, left her to pursue her journey alone. It
is but a few hours' r