d maids, kneeling
by their virgin beds, wore out the night with an importunity that would
not be put off. Sure in their great love and their little knowledge that
no case could be like theirs, they beseeched God with bitter weeping
for their lovers' lives, because, forsooth, they could not bear it if
hurt came to them. The answers to many thousands of these agonizing
appeals of maid and wife and mother were already in the enemy's
cartridge-boxes.

IV

The day came. The dispatches in the morning papers stated that the
armies would probably be engaged from an early hour.

Who that does not remember those battle-summers can realize from
any telling how the fathers and mothers, the wives and sisters and
sweethearts at home, lived through the days when it was known that a
great battle was going on at the front in which their loved ones were
engaged? It was very quiet in the house on those days of battle. All
spoke in hushed voices and stepped lightly. The children, too small to
understand the meaning of the shadow on the home, felt it and took their
noisy sports elsewhere. There was little conversation, except as to when
definite news might be expected. The household work dragged sadly, for
though the women sought refuge from thought in occupation, they were
constantly dropping whatever they had in hand to rush away to their
chambers to face the presentiment, perhaps suddenly borne in upon them
with the force of a conviction, that they might be called on to bear
the worst. The table was set for the regular meals, but there was little
pretense of eating. The eyes of all had a far-off expression, and they
seemed barely to see one another. There was an intent, listening look
upon their faces, as if they were hearkening to the roar of the battle a
thousand miles away.

Many pictures of battles have been painted, but no true one yet, for
the pictures contain only men. The women are unaccountably left out.
We ought to see not alone the opposing lines of battle writhing and
twisting in a death, embrace, the batteries smoking and flaming, the
hurricanes of cavalry, but innumerable women also, spectral forms of
mothers, wives, sweethearts, clinging about the necks of the advancing
soldiers, vainly trying to shield them with their bosoms, extending
supplicating hands to the foe, raising eyes of anguish to Heaven. The
soldiers, grim-faced, with battle-lighted eyes, do not see the ghostly
forms that throng them, but shoot and