ith startling
distinctness--and the horror of his doom cut with the deep sense of
personal anguish.

"He shall not die," she said, with sudden resolution. "I'll take his
mother to the President. He can't resist her. I'll send for Phil to help
me."

She hurried to the telegraph office and summoned her brother.

CHAPTER II

THE GREAT HEART

The next morning, when Elsie reached the obscure boarding-house at which
Mrs. Cameron stopped, the mother had gone to the market to buy a bunch of
roses to place beside her boy's cot.

As Elsie awaited her return, the practical little Yankee maid thought with
a pang of the tenderness and folly of such people. She knew this mother
had scarcely enough to eat, but to her bread was of small importance,
flowers necessary to life. After all, it was very sweet, this foolishness
of these Southern people, and it somehow made her homesick.

"How can I tell her!" she sighed. "And yet I must."

She had only waited a moment when Mrs. Cameron suddenly entered with her
daughter. She threw her flowers on the table, sprang forward to meet
Elsie, seized her hands and called to Margaret.

"How good of you to come so soon! This, Margaret, is our dear little
friend who has been so good to Ben and to me."

Margaret took Elsie's hand and longed to throw her arms around her neck,
but something in the quiet dignity of the Northern girl's manner held her
back. She only smiled tenderly through her big dark eyes, and softly
said:

"We love you! Ben was my last brother. We were playmates and chums. My
heart broke when he ran away to the front. How can we thank you and your
brother!"

"I'm sure we've done nothing more than you would have done for us," said
Elsie, as Mrs. Cameron left the room.

"Yes, I know, but we can never tell you how grateful we are to you. We
feel that you have saved Ben's life and ours. The war has been one long
horror to us since my first brother was killed. But now it's over, and we
have Ben left, and our hearts have been crying for joy all night."

"I hoped my brother, Captain Phil Stoneman, would be here to-day to meet
you and help me, but he can't reach Washington before Friday."

"He caught Ben in his arms!" cried Margaret. "I know he's brave, and you
must be proud of him."

"Doctor Barnes says they are as much alike as twins--only Phil is not
quite so tall and has blond hair like mine."

"You will let me see him and thank him the moment he comes?"

"Hurr