cult things to overcome,
and that was the hottest fight I ever passed through, for as I tell
you, I was a coward. But love and loyalty won the day, and, asking no
quarter, the Rebel surrendered."

"Phil Beaufort, you're a brick!" cried Dick, with a sounding slap on
his comrade's shoulder.

"A brand snatched from the burnin'. Hallelujah!" chanted Flint,
seesawing with excitement.

"Then you went to find your wife? How? Where?" asked Thorn, forgetting
vigilance in interest.

"Friend Bent hated war so heartily that he would have nothing to do
with paroles, exchanges, or any martial process whatever, but bade me
go when and where I liked, remembering to do by others as I had been
done by. Before I was well enough to go, however, I managed, by means
of Copperhead influence and returned prisoners, to send a letter to my
father and receive an answer. You can imagine what both contained; and
so I found myself penniless, but not poor, an outcast, but not alone.
Old Bent treated me like a prodigal son, and put money in my purse;
his pretty daughters loved me for Margaret's sake, and gave me a
patriotic salute all round when I left them, the humblest, happiest
man in Pennsylvania. Margaret once said to me that this was the time
for deeds, not words; that no man should stand idle, but serve the
good cause with head, heart, and hand, no matter in what rank; for
in her eyes a private fighting for liberty was nobler than a dozen
generals defending slavery. I remembered that, and, not having
influential friends to get me a commission, enlisted in one of her own
Massachusetts regiments, knowing that no act of mine would prove my
sincerity like that. You should have seen her face when I walked in
upon her, as she sat alone, busied with the army work, as I'd so often
seen her sitting by my bed; it showed me all she had been suffering
in silence, all I should have lost had I chosen darkness instead of
light. She hoped and feared so much she could not speak, neither could
I, but dropped my cloak, and showed her that, through love of her, I
had become a soldier of the Union. How I love the coarse blue uniform!
for when she saw it, she came to me without a word and kept her
promise in a month."

"Thunder! what a harnsome woman!" exclaimed Flint, as Phil, opening
the golden case that held his talisman, showed them the beautiful,
beloved face of which he spoke.

"Yes! and a right noble woman too. I don't deserve her, but I will. We
par