he began, and stood, coloring violently.

"You earn your five dollars a day, if anybody in Calhoun does," urged
the official, with kindly brusqueness.

"It is not right; I do not wish to take the money," said the nurse,
with agitation. "I do not wish to be paid for--saving--human life.
I did not come to the fever district to make money; I came to save
life--_to save life_!" he added, in a quick whisper. He had not slept
for four nights, and seemed, they noticed, more than usually nervous
in his manner.

"The money is yours," insisted the treasurer.

"Very well," said Hope, after a long silence; and no more was said
about it. He took his wages and walked away up the street, absorbed
in thought.

One morning, he went to his lodgings to seek a little rest. It was
about six o'clock, and people were already moving in the hot, thirsty
streets. The apothecaries' doors were open, and their clerks were
astir. The physicians drove or walked hastily, with the haggard look
of men whose days and nights are too short for their work, and whose
hope, and heart as well, have grown almost too small. Zerviah noticed
those young Northern fellows among them, Frank and Remane, and saw how
they had aged since they came South,--brave boys, both of them, and
had done a man's brave deed. Through her office window, as he walked
past, he caught a glimpse of Dr. Dare's gray dress and blonde, womanly
head of abundant hair. She was mixing medicines, and patients stood
waiting. She looked up and nodded as he went by; she was too busy
to smile. At the door of the Relief Committee, gaunt groups hung,
clamoring. At the telegraph office, knots of men and women gathered,
duly inspiring the heroic young operator,--a slight girl,--who had not
left her post for now many days and nights. Her chief had the fever
last week,--was taken at the wires,--lived to get home. She was the
only person alive in the town who knew how to communicate with the
outer world. She had begun to teach a little brother of hers the Morse
alphabet,--"That somebody may know, Bobby, if I--can't come some day."
She, too, knew Zerviah Hope, and looked up; but her pretty face was
clouded with the awful shadow of her own responsibility.

"We all have about as much as we can bear," thought Zerviah, as he
went by. His own burden was lightened a little that morning, and he
was going home to get a real rest. He had just saved his last
patient--the doctor gave him up. It was a young man, t