+--------------------------+ | THIRD AMBULANCE CORPS | | Army of the Potomac | | Temporary Headquarters | +--------------------------+ On the lawn two or three uniformed nurses sat in rocking chairs, scraping lint and sewing. On cots along the narrow porch lay several gaunt-faced, partly dressed convalescents. Dad instinctively drew his horse to a standstill as he read the sign. The sewing nurses on the lawn glanced up as he halted. One of them--silvery-haired little woman in gray--gave a joyous exclamation and, springing to her feet, ran across to the open gate and out into the lane to greet the rider. On the instant Dad was off his horse and advancing with gladly outstretched hands toward her. “Emily!” was all he could find voice to say just at first. “Oh, I was so hoping you’d find where we were, James!” she hailed him. “And that you’d come to see me before I left.” “Left? The corps is moved again?” “No. But I’m detailed at one of the Washington hospitals. I’m to start first thing in the morning.” Dad had passed one arm through his horse’s bridle. Now, with a very proprietary air, he tucked the little woman’s hand under his other arm. “Walk a way down the lane with me,” he begged. “Now that you’re going to Washington, I don’t know when I’ll ever see you again.” Eagerly she assented. Followed by the amused smiles of the group of nurses on the lawn, the two elderly lovers sauntered down the deserted lane together, arm in arm, the tired horse following; the mocking-bird calling to them from the interlaced green branches above. For a space neither of them spoke. Dad forgot his weariness; forgot everything except the strangely sweet new sense of content; of reaching at last a safe and perfect haven after long years of storm-tossed misery. The little old lady smiled up at him. “It’s--it’s kind of like _home_ to be walking with you, James,” she said shyly. Then, her housewifely eye beginning to take in details, she exclaimed: “Land sakes, James Brinton, if you haven’t gone and torn a great rent in the shoulder of your coat! Such a careless man I never did see! And you haven’t even noticed it.” Dad looked down at the cut made by the Confederate captain’s saber when, in the early stages of the encounter, it had grazed his upper arm. “That’s so!” he admitted shamefacedly. “I never noticed it. It was shiftless of me. I’ll get it mended as soon as I go back to camp. You aren’t ashamed to be seen walking with a man who’s got a torn coat, are you, Emily?” he finished anxiously. “Because--” She interrupted him with another exclamation as she looked more keenly at the rent. “And the shoulder of your shirt, right under it, is torn, too,” she said. “How could you ever get both of them torn like that and never know it?”