ing to
his side in alarm.

"Oh, what has happened? You are worse!"

"I am very comfortable; but, my kind friend, I must--I must let my
mother know that I am alive; she will think me dead."

"That's what I meant to ask you--just as soon as you seemed able to
talk. I would have gladly sent her word and invited her to come here,
but I didn't know the name nor the address. You didn't have a stitch of
clothes when you came except your underwear; the rest had been taken
off, the men said, because they were soiled and bloody, and there wasn't
a clew of any sort to your identity, except that you were a lieutenant
in a Virginia regiment. I thought we should find out when the provost
came, but they have sent to Manassas, and no answer has come back yet."

"The men who brought me here deceived you, Mrs. Raines. I do not belong
to a Virginia regiment; I belong to a New York regiment, and I am
a--a--Union soldier."

"Great Father! A Yankee?" The poor woman sank on the nearest chair, as
some one who has been nursing a patient that suddenly turns out to have
small-pox or leprosy.

"Yes, Mrs. Raines: if you prefer that name, I'm a Yankee--but we call
only New-Englanders Yankees." He waited for her to speak, but as she sat
dumb, helpless, overcome, he continued: "I tried to explain the mistake
before, but your kindness cut me off. I can only say that, though you
have given me a mother's care and a Christian's consideration under a
misunderstanding, I trust you will not blame me for willful deception
nor regret the goodness you have shown the stranger in your hands."

"And those men that brought you here--were they Yankees, too?" she
asked, her mind dwelling, womanlike, on the least essential factor of
the problem in order to keep the grievous fact as far away as possible.

"Oh, no! they were your own people. There was no collusion, I assure
you." Jack almost laughed now, as the dialogue in the ambulance recurred
to him, and the adroit use the men had made of their unconscious charges
to secure a furlough. "No; I was more amazed than I can say when I came
to myself in this charming chamber--a paradise it seemed to me, a home
paradise--when your kind face bent over my pillow."

"It's a cruel disappointment," she said, rising and holding the back of
the chair as she tilted it toward the bed. "We were so proud of you--so
proud to have any one that had fought for our dear State in our own
house to nurse, to bring back to life. Ever