upting the soft harmonious
chorus of the soaring, singing birds! So painfully near it seemed, too,
it could but have been a very little distance off outside that gate
which she sees before her. Her first impulse is to draw back and retire,
shuddering, far into the garden. But, behold! the gate swings back of
its own accord, and in the face of that fact, and with the remembrance
of the words she has heard, she dare not do other than pass through the
open way.

What a strange, wide world, and how dreary! A great, mad battle is
raging; the grass, sloping up to the horizon, is scorched with the heat
of the sun--the sun which only made a pleasant warmth in the shady
garden. There is the fierce galloping of horses, and wrestling and
fighting of men. Shouts and groans fill the air and drown the song of
the birds. There are heaps of dying and wounded. Ah! there is one man
not a stone's throw from her; his must have been the voice that reached
her within her gates. How remarkable that she should have heard nothing
before of all the great din. Another groan, followed by some inaudible
words, causes Hazel timidly to approach the wounded man. He is evidently
one of the very poorest of the "common" soldiers; and there is a look in
his face which speaks the word death with a shudder in the girl's heart.
A gleam lightens the agony in the man's eyes as he sees the white form
and gentle face above him. He gazes steadily a moment, as though to make
sure his vision is not a passing illusion; then Hazel catches the words,
"Were you sent to me?"

Very quietly she tells him in whose name she comes. Then, with a long,
struggling sigh of satisfaction, without a shadow of further questioning
in the dying eyes or voice, he whispers--"Hope even for me in Him, then,
since He sent you!"

So the low, flickering flame of life, set free, leaps up to its source;
and the forsaken home rests in unbroken peace.

Saddened, and yet peaceful, too, Hazel turns slowly away from the
battle-field, and walks on, not noticing whither she goes. Jarring
sounds recall her, and she finds herself in a narrow valley, surrounded
by noisy children and brawling women. No one seems conscious of her
presence. A lot of men are lounging against the wall of a public-house.
The low building is conspicuous by its being in good repair, while its
neighbours are all in a shattered condition. The window-frames are
painted and varnished, and the open entrance discloses a smart int