mong
them all, and one day there came to her a single photograph, a still
handsomer picture of Mr. Paul Revere Abbot, and a letter in a hand
somewhat stiff and cramped, in which the writer apologized for the
appearance of the scrawl, explained that his hand had been injured while
practising fencing with a comrade, but that having seen her picture in
the group he could not but congratulate himself on having received a
"Havelock" from hands so fair, could not resist the impulse to write and
personally thank her, and then to inquire if she was a sister of Guthrie
Warren, whom he had known and looked up to at Harvard as a "soph" looks
up to a senior; and he enclosed his picture, which would perhaps recall
him to Guthrie's mind.

Her mother had been dead many years, and Bessie showed this letter to
her father, and with his full consent and with much sisterly pride wrote
that Guthrie was indeed her brother; that he, too, had taken up arms for
his country and was at the front with his regiment, though nowhere near
their friends of the--th Massachusetts (who were watching the fords of
the Potomac up near Edward's Ferry), and that she had sent the
photograph to him.

One letter seemed to lead to another, and those from the Potomac
speedily became very interesting, especially when the papers mentioned
how gallantly Lieutenant Paul Abbot had behaved at Ball's Bluff and how
hard he had tried to save his colonel, who was taken prisoner. Guthrie
returned the photograph to Bess, with a letter which the doctor read
attentively. He remembered Paul Abbot as being a leader in the younger
set at Harvard, and was delighted to hear of him "under the colors,"
where every Union-loving man should be--where, as he recalled him, he
knew Abbot must be, for he belonged to one of the oldest and best
families in all Massachusetts; he was a gentleman born and bred, and
would make a name for himself in this war. Guthrie only wished there
were some of that stamp in his own regiment, but he feared that there
were few who had the stuff of which the Abbots were made--there were too
many ward politicians. "But I've cast my lot with it and shall see it
through," wrote Guthrie. Poor fellow! poor father! poor loving-hearted
Bessie! The first volley from the crouching gray ranks in those dim
woods back of Seven Pines sent the ward politicians in mad rush to the
rear, and when Guthrie Warren sprang for the colors, and waved them high
in air, and shouted for th