her touch
had healing in it, and the wounded grew better at the sight of her face.

"If all the Yankees are like her, I wish I had a few more with this
column," murmured Talbot under his breath.

Lucia began to feel the change in the atmosphere about her. The coldness
vanished. She looked upon the faces that welcomed her, and being a woman
she felt warmth at her heart, but said nothing.

Prescott crawled again from his wagon and said to her as she passed:

"Why do you avoid me, Miss Catherwood?"

A gleam of humour appeared in her eye.

"You are getting well too fast. I do not think you will need any more
attention," she replied.

He regarded her with an unmoved countenance.

"Miss Catherwood," he said, "I feel myself growing very much worse. It
is a sudden attack and a bad one."

But she passed on, disbelieving, and left him rueful.

The night went by without event, and then another day and another night,
and still they hovered in the rear of their army, uncertain which way to
go, tangled up in the Wilderness and fearing at any moment a raid of the
Northern cavalry. They yet saw the dim fire in the forest, and no hour
was without its distant cannon shot.

On the second day the two editors, Raymond and Winthrop, joined them.

"I've been trying to print a paper," said Raymond ruefully, "but they
wouldn't stay in one place long enough for me to get my press going.
This morning a Yankee cannon shot smashed the press and I suppose I
might as well go back to Richmond. But I can't, with so much coming on.
They'll be in battle before another day."

Raymond spoke in solemn tones (even he was awed and oppressed by what he
had seen) and Winthrop nodded assent.

"They are converging upon the same point," said Winthrop, "and they are
sure to meet inside of twenty-four hours."

When Lucia awoke the next morning the distant guns were sounding in her
ears and a light flame burned under the horizon in the north. Day had
just come, hot and close, and the sun showed the colour of copper
through the veil of clouds hanging at the tops of the trees.

"It's begun," she heard Talbot say briefly, but she did not need his
words to tell her that the armies were joined again in deadly strife in
the Wilderness.

They ate breakfast in silence, all watching the glowing light in the
north and listening to the thunder of the guns. Prescott, strong after
his night's rest and sleep, came from the wagon and announced that he
would not