She put her handkerchief to her eyes. “So ill,” she sobbed. “Can I see her?” asked Tom, gently. “Yes; it won’t hurt her.” When Tom Adams entered the room he was so shocked that he stopped still. Mrs. Seddon bent over the bed with her face pale and worn, and in the bed lay Nancy Pansy, so changed that Tom Adams never would have known her. She had fallen off so in that short time that he would not have recognized her. Her face was perfectly white, except two bright red spots on her cheeks. She was drawing short, quick breaths, and was talking all the time very fast. No one could understand just what she was saying, but a good deal of it was about Harry and the old doctor. Tom bent over her, but she did not know him; she just went on talking faster than ever. “Nancy Pansy, don’t you know Tom Adams?” her mother asked her, in a soothing voice. She had never called the young man so before, and he felt that it gave him a place with Nancy Pansy; but the child did not know him; she said something about not having any Harry. “She is growing weaker,” said her mother. Tom Adams leaned over and kissed the child, and left the room. As he came down the steps he met Griff O’Meara, who asked how the “little gurl” was, “bless her sowl!” When he told him, Griff turned away and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Tom Adams told him to stay there and act as guard, which Griff vowed he’d do if the “howl ribel army kem.” Ten minutes later Tom galloped out of camp with a paper in his pocket signed by the surgeon. In an hour he had covered the twelve miles of mud which lay between Middleburgh and the nearest telegraph station, and was sending a message to General ----, his commander. At last an answer came. Tom Adams read it. “Tell him it is a matter of life and death,” he said to the operator. “Tell him there is no one else who understands it and can check it, and tell him it must be done before the afternoon train leaves, or it will be too late. Here, I’ll write it out.” And he did so, putting all his eloquence into the despatch. Late that night two men galloped through the mud and slush in the direction of Middleburgh. The younger one had a large box before him on his horse; the other was quite an old man. Picket after picket was passed with a word spoken by the younger man, and they galloped on. At last they stopped at the Judge’s gate, and sprang from their splashed and smoking horses. As they hurried up the walk, the guard at the steps challenged them in a rich Irish brogue. “It’s I, O’Meara. You here still? How is she?” “’Most in the Holy Virgin’s arms,” said the Irishman. “Is she alive?” asked both men. “It’s a docther can tell that,” said the sentinel. “They thought her gone an hour ago. There’s several in there,” he said to his captain. “I didn’t let ’em in at firrst, but the young leddy said they wuz the frien’s of the little gurl, an’ I let ’em by a bit.”