not a word, nor changed a line of his
face. She got no answer at all.

The inscription was as follows; I used to see it every work-day of the
week for years--it may be there yet--190 Common street, first flight,
back office:

[Illustration:
Oct 14 1864
17 Confederate
Prisoners escaped
Through this hole]

But we move too fast. Let us go back into the war for a moment longer.
Mary pursued her calling. The most of it she succeeded in doing in a
very sunshiny way. She carried with her, and left behind her, cheer,
courage, hope. Yet she had a widow's heart, and whenever she took a
widow's hand in hers, and oftentimes, alone or against her sleeping
child's bedside, she had a widow's tears. But this work, or these
works,--she made each particular ministration seem as if it were the
only one,--these works, that she might never have had the opportunity to
perform had her nest-mate never been taken from her, seemed to keep John
near. Almost, sometimes, he seemed to walk at her side in her errands of
mercy, or to spread above her the arms of benediction. And so even the
bitter was sweet, and she came to believe that never before had widow
such blessed commutation.

One day, a short, slight Confederate prisoner, newly brought in, and
hobbling about the place where he was confined, with a vile bullet-hole
in his foot, came up to her and said:--

"Allow me, madam,--did that man call you by your right name, just now?"

Mary looked at him. She had never seen him before.

"Yes, sir," she said.

She could see the gentleman, under much rags and dirt.

"Are you Mrs. John Richling?"

A look of dismay came into his face as he asked the grave question.

"Yes, sir," replied Mary.

His voice dropped, and he asked, with subdued haste:--

"Ith it pothible you're in mourning for him?"

She nodded.

It was the little rector. He had somehow got it into his head that
preachers ought to fight, and this was one of the results. Mary went
away quickly, and told Dr. Sevier. The Doctor went to the commanding
general. It was a great humiliation to do so, he thought. There was none
worse, those days, in the eyes of the people. He craved and got the
little man's release on parole. A fortnight later, as Dr. Sevier was
sitting at the breakfast table, with the little rector at its opposite
end, he all at once rose to his full attenuated height, with a frown and
then a smile, and, tumbling the chair backward behind him,