lmia told him she
was a nurse, and that he must not fail to call for her at the time
appointed. Then he drove away; and she walked rapidly along the lane,
which seemed to lead toward the battle-field. The lane soon began to
curve, and she left it and walked across several fields. Soon she came
to some outposts, where the sentries wanted to know where she was going.
Of course the sentries behind an army are not as strict as those in
front of it, and so when she informed them she was a nurse they told her
how to get to the field-hospital, which was a mile or more away.

"But Almia did not intend to go to any hospital. She knew if she did she
would immediately be put under orders; and now her blood was up, and she
could stand no orders. She thought she perceived a faint smell of powder
in the air. This made her feel wonderfully independent, and she strode
onward with a light and fearless step. But when she came to a bosky
copse which concealed her from the sentries, she turned away from the
direction of the hospital, and pressed onward toward the point from
which came the heaviest sound of cannon.

"Now you must understand, John Gayther," remarked the Daughter of the
House, taking off her broad hat, that the breeze might more freely blow
through the masses of her silvery-golden hair, "that when people who are
really in earnest, especially people in fiction, go forth to find things
they want, they generally find them. And if it is highly desirable that
these things should be out of the common they are out of the common. A
great deal of what happens in real life, and almost everything in
literature, depends on this principle. You, of course, comprehend this,
because you compose stories yourself."

"Oh, yes," said the gardener; "I comprehend it perfectly."

"I say all this on account of what is about to happen in this story, and
also because I don't want you to make any objection in your mind on
account of its not being exactly according to present usages. Almia was
pushing steadily through the clump of bushes when she heard, not far
away, the clash of arms. Greatly excited, she silently moved on, and
peeping out from behind some foliage, she saw in a small open space in
the woods two men engaged in single combat. How her heart did beat! She
was frightened nearly to death. But she did not think of flight; her
eyes were glued upon the fascinating spectacle before her. Often had she
heard of two brave swordsmen fighting each