I.

In the latter part of the afternoon of a summer day in the year 1863, a little crowd gathered near the door of the military hospital on Filbert Street, in the city of Philadelphia. Like the rest of the vast camps of the sick, which added in those days to the city population some twenty-five thousand of the maimed and ill, this one has been lost, in the healing changes with which civilizing progress, no less quickly than forgiving nature, is apt to cover the traces of war.

The incident which drew to the hospital gate a small crowd was common in those days. Ambulances were bringing to its portal a share of such wounded men as were fit to be removed to a distance from Gettysburg and distributed among the great hospitals of the North. A surgeon in green sash and undress army uniform stood bareheaded within the shade of the doorway. Beside the curbstone, near the ambulances, a younger man, an assistant surgeon, directed the attendants, as they bore the wounded into the building on stretchers between double lines of soldiers of the invalid corps, who at that time did guard duty in our hospitals.

The surgeon at the doorway, a tall, refined-looking man, so erect as to seem a little stiff in figure, made occasional

comments in a quiet, well-bred voice, rather monotonously free from the decisive sharpness which habits of command are apt to produce.

"Step together, my men. Left, right - you shake the stretcher! Left, right - make more room there, sergeant. Keep back the crowd."

Sometimes, a man got out of the ambulance with help, and limped eagerly into the open doorway; sometimes, lost to all around him, one was borne in motionless; sometimes, it was a face to which death had already whispered, "Come." In the little hall the bearers paused, while a young surgeon asked a few brief questions, after which the sick man was given his iced lemonade, or some other refreshing drink, and taken

away.

Now and then an officer was carried in. This was usually some desperately wounded man, unable to be taken to his home. As these sufferers passed the surgeon in charge, he noted the scrap of uniform, or the cap, and drawing himself up, saluted with excessive military accuracy. Were the man too ill or too careless to notice this courtesy, a faint lift of the surgeon's brow, some slight treachery of the features, showed that he, at least, felt that nothing less than paralysis would have prevented him from returning the military salutation.

Meanwhile, about two squares away,

as Philadelphians say, a man and woman were walking somewhat rapidly toward the hospital. The man was what is known in the army as a "contract-assistant surgeon," that is, a physician taken from civil life and paid at a certain rate per month to do the duty of a military surgeon. In some cases these gentlemen lived in the hospitals, and were of course expected to wear uniform, and to submit to all the usual rules of military life. Others merely attended at set hours, and included not only certain of the most able men in the profession of medicine, but also a great number of the more or less competent, glad enough of the eighty dollars a month which they received. Among these latter were many of those hapless persons who drift through life, and seize, as they are carried along, such morsels of good luck as the great tides of fortune float within reach of their feeble tentacula. This contract surgeon was a man of full middle height. He stooped slightly, but the habit became oddly noticeable owing to his uniform, on which the surgeon in charge insisted during the time of the hospital visit. He wore a military cap, under which his hair curled softly. His features were distinct but delicate, and the upper lip, which was short, retreated a little, a peculiarity apt to give to the countenance a certain purity of expression. His face was clean shaved, but he had better have worn a mustache, since the mouth was too regular for manly beauty. As he went by, two sun-browned young fellows in uniform, and wearing their corps marks, turned and glanced at him. One of them said, "What an interesting The other returned, smiling, "But what a careless figure! and a soldier with a sun umbrella is rather droll." In fact, there was a certain look of indifference to appearances about the man's whole aspect, and the umbrella which had excited remark was carried at a lazy slope over the shoulder. Evidently, he felt very keenly the damp, oppres

sive heat of the July day; but while this was seen in the indolent slowness of his walk, his face showed plainly that the mind was more alive than the body. As they crossed the small park then known as Penn Square, he paused to pick up a flower, counted its stamina, and stowed it away in the lining of his cap. An insect on his sister's sleeve drew his attention. The trees, the passers-by, a monkey and a hand-organ at a street corner, all seemed to get in turn a share of alert, attentive regard.

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The woman beside him was a strange contrast. Unmindful of anything about her, she walked on steadily with a firm, elastic step, and a face which, however pleasing, and it was distinctly that, was not remarkable for decided expression. Whatever might have been her fortunes, time as yet had failed to leave upon her face any strong lines of characterization. Absolute health offers a certain resistance to these grim chiselings of face; and in this woman ruddy cheeks, clear eyes, and round facial lines above a plump but well-built and compact frame told of a rarely wholesome life. She was dressed in gray linen, fitting her well, but without cuffs, collar, or ribbon; and although the neatness of her guise showed that it must have exacted some care, it was absolutely devoid of ornament. In her hand she carried a rather heavy basket, which now and then she shifted from one side to the other, for relief.

Presently they turned into Filbert Street from Broad Street.

"Do look, Ann!" said Dr. Wendell to his sister. "I never pass this paper mulberry-tree without a sense of disgust. There is a reptilian vileness of texture and color about the trunk; and don't you remember how, when we were children, we used to try to find two leaves alike? Don't you think, Ann, there is something exasperating about that? I was trying to think why it annoyed me now. It is such a contradiction to the

tendency of nature towards monotonous repetition."

"You had best be trying to hurry up a little," returned Miss Wendell.

"Do give me that basket, dear," said her companion, pausing; "it is much too heavy for you. I should have carried it myself."

"It is not heavy," she said, smiling, "and I am very well used to it. But I do think, brother Ezra, we must hurry. Why cannot you hurry? You are half an hour late now, and do look at your vest! It is buttoned all crooked, and Why, there is quite a crowd at the hospital door! Oh, why were you so late! and they do fuss so when you are late."

"I see, I see," he said. "What can it be? I wish it was n't so hot. Do hurry, Ann!"

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The woman smiled faintly. "Yes, it is warm. Here, take this basket. am tired out." Upon which, somewhat reluctantly lowering his umbrella, he took the basket, and quickened his pace. A large man, solidly built, drove by in a victoria, with servants on the box, himself in cool white. Dr. Wendell glanced at him as he passed, and thought, "That looks like the incarnation of success! and wondered vaguely what lucky fates had been that man's easy ladders. Very successful men and people who have had many defeats both get to be superstitious believers in blind fortune, while a certain amount of misfortune destroys in some all the germs of success. For others, a failure is like a blow. It may stagger, but it excites to forceful action. Come!" said his sister, looking as worried and flushed as if she, and not he, had been to blame; and in a minute or two they were entering the hospital. "Good-evening, Miss Wendell," said the surgeon; "excuse me-don't stand in the way. A moment, Dr. Wendell, -a moment," he added, saluting him; and glancing, with a gentleman's in stinct, after Miss Wendell, to be sure

she was out of hearing. Then turning, he said to his subordinate, "You are a full half hour late; in fact," taking out his watch, "the clock misled me, - you are thirty-nine minutes late. Sergeant, don't let me see that clock wrong again. It should be set every morning."

Wendell flushed. Like most men who think over-well of themselves, he was sensitive to all reproof, and the training of civil life, while it had made more or less of hardship easy to bear, had unfitted him for the precision which that army surgeon exacted alike from his juniors and his clocks.

"I was somewhat delayed," said

Wendell.

as

"Ah? No matter about excuses. You, we all of us, are portions of a machine. I never excuse myself to myself, or to others. Yes -I know" yes Wendell began again to explain. At this moment the soldiers set down at his feet a stretcher just removed from an ambulance, while another set of bearers took their places.

The surgeon saluted the new-comer on his little palliasse, noting that around him lay a faded coat of Confederate gray, with a captain's stripes on the shoulders. The wounded man returned the salute with his left arm.

"You were hurt at Gettysburg?" said the surgeon.

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Yes, sir. On Cemetery Hill; and a damned hard fight, too! We were most all left there. I shall never see a better fight if I go to heaven!"

The attendants laughed, but the surgeon's face rested unmoved.

"I hope you will soon be well." Then he added kindly, "Dr. Wendell, see that this gentleman is put in Ward Two, near a window, and give him some milk punch at once; he looks pale. No lemonade; milk punch. Come now, my men; move along! Who next? Ah, Major Morton, I have been expecting you!" and he bent to shake hands warmly with a sallow man who filled

Yes, Cemetery Hill. I wonder the old Fifth has any one alive!"

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"Well, well," replied the surgeon, we shall give you a health brevet soon. Bed Number Five, next to the last man. Take good care of Major Morton, Dr. Wendell. He is an old friend of mine. There, easy, my men! I will presently see to you myself, Morton."

And so the long list of sick and hurt were carried in, one by one, a small share of the awful harvest of Gettysburg, until, as night fell, the surgeon turned and entered the hospital, the sentinel resumed his place at the open door, and the crowd of curious scattered and passed away.

Meanwhile, Dr. Wendell went moodily up-stairs to the vast ward which occupied all the second floor of the old brick armory. He was one of those unhappy people who are made sore for days by petty annoyances; nor did the possession of considerable intelligence and much imagination help him. In fact, these qualities served only, as is usual in such natures, to afford him a more ample fund of self-torment. In measuring himself with others, he saw that in acquisitions and mind he was their superior, and he was constantly puzzled to know why he failed where they succeeded.

The vast hall which he entered was filled with long rows of iron bedsteads, each with its little label for the owner's name, rank, disease, and treatment suspended from the iron cross-bar above the head of the sufferer. Beside each bed stood a small wooden table, with one or two bottles and perhaps a book or two upon it. The walls were whitewashed, the floor was scrupulously clean, and an air of extreme and even accurate neatness pervaded the place. Except for the

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Stop," she said to her brother; "let them lift him. There," she added, with a satisfied air, as she shook up and replaced the pillow," there, that is better! Here are two or three ripe peaches. You said it was like heaven. Don't you think all pleasant things ought to make us think of heaven?

"Oh, by George," he replied; "my dear lady, did you ever have a bullet in your shoulder? I can't think, for torment. I can only feel."

"That may have its use, too," said she, simply. "I have been told that pain is a great preacher."

The patient smiled grimly. "He gets a fellow's attention, any way, if that's good preaching!"

"Ann, Ann!" exclaimed her brother. "Don't talk to him. Don't talk, especially any I mean, he is too tired."

"I do not think I hurt him, brother," she returned, in a quiet aside. "But there are errands which may not be delayed to wait for our times of ease."

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Oh, it is no matter, doctor," said the officer, smiling, as he half heard Dr. Wendell's comment. "I like it. Don't

say a word. It would be a pleasure even to be scolded by a woman. It is all right, I know! Thank you, miss. A little water, please." And then the