af on his shoulder
which entitled him to be called Major Lindsay. He recovered from his
wound only too rapidly, for Myrtle had visited him daily in the military
hospital where he had resided for treatment; and it was bitter parting.
The telegraph wires were thrilling almost hourly with messages of death,
and the long pine boxes came by almost every train,--no need of asking
what they held.

Once more he came, detailed on special duty, and this time with the
eagle on his shoulder,--he was Colonel Lindsay. The lovers could not
part again of their own free will. Some adventurous women had followed
their husbands to the camp, and Myrtle looked as if she could play the
part of the Maid of Saragossa on occasion. So Clement asked her if she
would return with him as his wife; and Myrtle answered, with as
much willingness to submit as a maiden might fairly show under such
circumstances, that she would do his bidding. Thereupon, with the
shortest possible legal notice, Father Pemberton was sent for, and the
ceremony was performed in the presence of a few witnesses in the large
parlor at The Poplars, which was adorned with flowers, and hung round
with all the portraits of the dead members of the family, summoned
as witnesses to the celebration. One witness looked on with unmoved
features, yet Myrtle thought there was a more heavenly smile on her
faded lips than she had ever seen before beaming from the canvas,--it
was Ann Holyoake, the martyr to her faith, the guardian spirit of
Myrtle's visions, who seemed to breathe a holier benediction than
any words--even those of the good old Father Pemberton himself--could
convey.

They went back together to the camp. From that period until the end of
the war, Myrtle passed her time between the life of the tent and that of
the hospital. In the offices of mercy which she performed for the sick
and the wounded and the dying, the dross of her nature seemed to be
burned away. The conflict of mingled lives in her blood had ceased.
No lawless impulses usurped the place of that serene resolve which had
grown strong by every exercise of its high prerogative. If she had
been called now to die for any worthy cause, her race would have been
ennobled by a second martyr, true to the blood of her who died under the
cruel Queen.

Many sad sights she saw in the great hospital where she passed some
months at intervals,--one never to be forgotten. An officer was
brought into the ward where she was in atte