"Yes, I know I could, and would were there necessity; not in callous disregard of danger, but because the greater emotion swallows up the less. Faulty as I am, there would be no bargainings and prudent reservations in my love. These are not the times for half-way people. Oh think, papa, while we are here in the midst of every comfort, how many thousands of mutilated, horribly wounded men are dying in agony throughout the South! My heart goes out to them in a sympathy and homage I can't express. Think how Lane and even Strahan may be suffering to-night, with so much done for them, and then remember the prisoners of war and the poor unknown enlisted men, often terribly neglected, I fear. Papa, won't you let me go as a nurse? The ache would go out of my own heart if I tried to reduce this awful sum of anguish a little. He whose word and touch always banished pain and disease would surely shield me in such labors. As soon as danger no longer threatens you, won't you let me do a little, although I am only a girl?" "Yes, Marian," her father replied, gravely; "far be it from me to repress such heaven-born impulses. You are now attaining the highest rank reached by humanity. All the avenues of earthly distinction cannot lead beyond the spirit of self-sacrifice for others. This places you near the Divine Man, and all grow mean and plebeian to the degree that they recede from him. You see what comes of developing your better nature. Selfishness and its twin, cowardice, are crowded out." "Please don't praise me any more. I can't stand it," faltered the girl, tearfully. A moment later her laugh rang out. "Hurrah!" she cried, "since Mr. Merwyn won't go to the war, I'm going myself." "To make more wounds than you will heal," her father added. "Remember the circumstances under which you go will have to receive very careful consideration, and I shall have to know all about the matron and nurses with whom you act. Your mother will be horrified, and so will not a few of your acquaintances. Flirting in shadows is proper enough, but helping wounded soldiers to live--But we understand each other, and I can trust you now." The next morning father and daughter parted with few misgivings, and the latter promised to go to her mother in a day or two, Mr. Vosburgh adding that if the week passed quietly he could join them on Saturday evening. So they quietly exchanged their good-by kiss on the edge of a volcano already in eruption.