peaking,--it seemed as if he were
about to look at his watch again; but instead of that, he said "Good
evening" to Miss Ames, and bowed, and walked back towards the hospital.

His assistant gathered up the newspapers, and then sat down again and
looked out towards the sea. The tide was coming in. She sat awhile and
watched the great waves lift aloft the graceful branches of green and
purple sea-weed, and saw the stormy petrels going to and fro, and
listened to the ocean's roar. She was sounding deeper depths than those
awful caverns which were hidden by the green and shining water from her
eyes.

If Janet Saunders, child of Nancy Elkins, at that moment felt a thrill
of joy, and broke forth into singing, would you deem the fact
inconsequent, not to be classed among the wonders of telegraphic
achievement?

I think her little cold, pinched, meagre life--nay, _lot_--was
brightened consciously on that great day of being,--that the sun felt
warmer, and the skies looked fairer than they ever had before. The
destiny which had seemed to be in the hands or charge of no one on earth
was in the hands of two as capable as any in this world for services of
love.

* * * * *

But now what was to be done by Dr. Saunders? Every man and woman sees
the "situation." For the present, of course, he was sufficiently
occupied; he was in the service of his country. But when these urgent
demands on his time, patience, and humanity, which were now incessant,
should no longer be made, because the country had need of him no
longer,--what then? Men mustered out of service generally went home;
family and neighborhood claimed them. What family, what neighborhood,
claimed him? His very soul abhorred the thought of Dalton, where he had
died to life; where he had buried his manhood. The very thought that the
neighbors would not be able to recognize him was a thought which made
him say to himself they never _should_ recognize him. He would _not_ be
identified as the poor creature who went out of Dalton with one hope,
and only one,--that the first day's engagement might see him lying among
the unnamed and unknown dead. But if the neighbors and his wife exposed
to him relations which he swore he would not degrade himself so far as
to resume, what was to become of his daughter? That was more easily
managed. He could send her away from home to school, if he could find a
lady in the land who would compassionate that neglecte