somehow managed to read the superscription-she had on

FRANK CARLEYN,

her new spectacles-it read thus:

It was just six months on the 15th, since Charity Gouge found Carleyn's studio closed.

On that evening, had you passed by Mrs. Edwards' boarding house about eight o'clock, you might have seen her standing at the door.

I am so tired," said she, as she rang the bell, I couldn't walk another step, but this has been one of the happiest days of my life. I havn't thought one moment since morning of Mr. Edwards or boarders either," as she sat down completely exhausted on her doorstep waiting for Bridget, who was unusually tardy in coming to the door. Bridget and Margaret are both out," said Miss Kate Howard, as she opened the door. Why, Mrs. Edwards, how tired you look! Come in and lie down on the sofa, and let me take your bonnet and shawl up stairs."

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'I am tired," said Mrs. Edwards.

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I never ate a mouthful of breakfast, I went off in such a hurry. I lay awake all last night thinking of those poor sick soldiers. There they were, more than two days on the bare floor without any beds or covering, and I don't know how many hours they went without food. But what could I do, with my hands full, and my boarders, and so many things to pay all the time, butter thirty cents a pound, and sugar so high, and nobody to take care of me if I get sick and helpless? Prudence Potter

saya I had better let the soldiers alone, and let the rich people take care of them. But I don't believe the world's going to be all taken care of by rich people, but I didn't know as I ought to go; but just as plain as I can hear my clock strike, did those words come to me in the night over and over-that text of that self-denial sermon I heard once, 'Withhold not good from any one to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it,' and this morning I knew that I ought to go.

"As I said, I didn't eat a mouthful of breakfast. You know I meant to take a great pail of boiled custard to those poor fellows. I wouldn't make it of grocery milk, and I thought our milkman never would come, I never knew him so late. I was in a great hurry to cool the custard, so I put the warm pail right on the ice. I never was such a goose before, and of course the pail soon slipped off, and I lost almost all my custard in the bottom of the refrigerator. I declare I could have had a good cry about it; so I took the little milk I had left and made more custard, and only had three pints when I might have had at least three quarts. I took some sandwiches made of those raised biscuits and that nice roast beef.

"I was glad I took that bag of lint, they needed it so much.

"All the time I get I mean to scrape lint, or knit stockings, but not of that horrid coarse yarn. I should think it would take the skin off their feet, if they are like the feet of other men. I am not going to make any more tulip quilts or embroider any more bands. While these poor fellows suffer so, it isn't right to spend any time or money either on things we can do without.

"I went through all the wards and talked with nearly every man. There were old and young-some educated and some ignorant; some as fine looking and gentlemanlylooking men as you'd meet anywhere.

"I feel so sorry for some of them I don't think I can sleep to-night. If I could only have given one of my biscuits to every man there. As I had had no breakfast, I saved out one biscuit to eat myself about noon-but one poor half-starved looking ma., with wistful eyes and emaciated hands, asked me if I couldn't give him a biscuit-so I gave it, and I havn't eaten anything.

"I took along some butter, and was glad of it, there were so many poor fellows at dinner time sitting up in their beds eating a piece of dry toast, without anything on it or with it. They havn't had any butter, and hardly any tea or fresh meat.

"Mother Government may be a very good and kind mother, and provide every thing, but somehow her boys don't get it.

"If one of those gentlemen were sick at home, they'd have to have every thing just so the sheets just so white, smooth and clean, the room perfectly still, and every possible delicacy, care and attention given them. A man is three times the care of a woman when he is sick-and more depends upon good care, good nursing and good food, than upon medicine."

"It is too bad," said Kate, "when a man is sick, he can't be home and be taken care of."

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They won't let them go home," said Mrs. Edwards, "until they think they are going to die, and then they keep them drooping and dying about three weeks, waiting for some permission or some kind of paper to go to Washington and come back. By the time the paper is exactly right, the poor fellows are too far gone to be sent home. If they are sent, they die on the way, and it isn't the war that's killed them-it is the hospital."

“I believe after a while one of the privates won't be allowed to sneeze without sending to Washington for permission. I'd rather trust a brother of mine on the battle field, than have him languishing in a crowded, cheerless hospital. I met Charity Gouge to-day. She was in deep mourning, poor thing. Her only brother was killed in the battle of Fredericksburg. I did feel sorry for her, she almost worshipped her brother. He was a noble fellow, and there wasn't a bit of Gouge about him. The Gouges are a queer, miserly set, and nobody likes them.

I don't think Charity can help being disagreeable. Poor thing, it will be some time before she wears those elegant green dresses."

"I wanted some milk porridge," continued Mrs. Edwards, "for those diarrhoea patients. They needed something beside dry toast and strong coffee-so I went out about noon to beg, borrow or buy a little milk. I walked

all around the place, and after two hours' trying, got about two quarts. Nobody offered to let me make it at their houses, and all looked at me as if I was begging cold victuals or old clothes for myself.

"One wealthy lady, with three servants and an elegant house, told me I could probably make some at Mrs. McBride's.

66 Mrs. McBride was an Irish woman who lived a little way off, and I could tell her Mrs. Exclusin told me to go there.

"I did go to Mrs. McBride's, and though she was an Irish woman, and poor, with no servant, and five small children, her heart was larger than Mrs. Exclusin's grand house. She gave me flour and salt, and cleaned her only little iron kettle for me to make it in.

I never shall forget Mrs. McBride, and if one of her bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked boys ever lives to be in a hospital, I know he'll be taken care of. I am sure kindness to the sick is rewarded in this life, and," continued Mrs. Edwards, "the men couldn't have looked more delighted or grateful for a cup of nectar or ambrosia wreathed with diamonds and pearls, than they seemed with that one saucer of milk porridge. They ate like hungry children, though hardly strong enough to raise the spoon to their lips. If I could have had fifty quarts instead of two!

'If these men had staid at home they might earn enough to keep them in luxury. It is cruel to starve and stint them

Some had six months' pay owing to them, and couldn't buy a pint of milk if they wanted it, for they hadn't a cent in their pockets. When they were near Carlisle, they paid a dollar or a dollar and a half for every loaf of bread they had, so it didn't take long at that rate to exhaust what little money they took with them into the army.

"As I was distributing peaches to the men who were allowed to eat them, one poor fellow who stood up near me, with a big shawl around his shoulder, held out his hand for a peach. As he took it, I saw gleaming out from under the shawl, a heavy iron chain binding his hands together. It frightened me a little. I didn't know but the man had been doing something criminal, till one of the men told me he had brain fever and was insane. Poor fellow! he was the finest looking man there. Not letting him see that I noticed the

chains, which he evidently tried to conceal under the shawl, I gave him another peach and stood still and let him talk. He of course was allowed to say what he chose, not being held responsible for his words, yet there was a good deal of method in his madness.

"I gave the men little packages of loaf sugar to keep by them and use in their tea when they had tea. I gave him a package and turned to leave. I looked around and saw him with the paper open in his hand, eating up the sugar.

"Why," said I, "do you like sugar?"

Yes, ma'am, and I havn't seen any in a year before. They think we privates have no souls. The doctor says I ought to have fresh meat every day, and I havn't had any for a week. And this coffee-I can't drink coffee-it goes to my head so—" Just then he coughed. "Last night I caught cold, as there was a window pane out close by the head of my bed, and when I was asleep it rained in, and the sheets and bed got very wet. I'd rather die than be here in this place and look at all these sick people; why," he added in a whisper, "they are most all of them crazy.But do you know there's going to be a battle to-day?" and he shivered, "the rebels are here, and I must go and shoot them, but don't put me in the Chickahominy swamps again, it makes me shake so."

That man is going to rave, lead him out," said the orderly to two of the nurses. They were inexperienced young men, members of the same regiment.

"Who is this insane man ?" I asked.

"His name is Carleyn, and he has been unused to exertion or fatigue. I don't believe when he enlisted he was strong enough to march with his knapsack as far as the ferry. Once, after having only one hard tack to eat, he marched thirty-five miles in one day, and he fell exhausted three times in that day's march."

"I wish I had a lemon, my tongue is so dry,' said a corpse-like looking man, on the cot bed just in front of where I stood.'

Can't you give that man a lemon ?" said I to the orderly, it won't hurt him-it may do him good.'

Nothing will do him good-the man is going to die, anyhow,' said the orderly.