The little lady, unable to leave her post at Washington, had done her best to atone for her absence by long daily letters--letters as spicily, sweetly old-fashioned as a garden of cinnamon roses and lavender--letters containing learned exhortation as to the care the patient must take of his precious self; throbbing with egregious pride at the wounded man’s valor; seeking to entertain him by lively accounts of the daily happenings in Washington. Small wonder that helpless old Dad looked forward to these daily epistles as a parched throat to cool drink. Presently--or, as it seemed to Dad, after about two and a half centuries--Jimmie came back at the double. “I’m sorry,” began the boy ruefully, “but--” The change in his grandfather’s face made him cry out in hot contrition: “Aw, I was fooling, Dad! I just wanted to have a joke with you like we used to. I’m a chump! Here it is--a dandy fat letter, too.” Dad seized the letter, laughing perfunctorily to show Jimmie he appreciated the jest that had constricted his heartstrings and throat. The boy tactfully withdrew to a little distance and proceeded to engage Emp in a thrilling game of “wrassle the bear,” Emp reluctantly enacting the ursine rôle. Dad opened the envelope with the luxurious slowness of one who seeks to drag out a pleasure to its utmost bounds. He smoothed wide the crinkly sheets with their fine, quaint handwriting, and began to read. This letter began neither with admonitions to carefulness nor with eager queries as to his health. In fact, it could scarce be said to “begin” at all. It started off in the very middle of the writer’s burst of excitement. Dad read: Something _wonderful’s_ happened. It’s got me so stirred up I don’t know which end of it to begin to tell first, and my hand’s all jumpy. Listen, Jim: This morning, as I was coming on duty at the hospital, I could tell the minute I got into the big outer hall something was up. Everybody was hurrying around, all flustered and het up, but all looking pleased as Punch. And the orderly at the door told me President Lincoln was making an inspection of the wards. I was crazy to see him; and I’d heard how he goes from bed to bed, talking to the sick soldiers just like they were his babies. So I started at a trot for the nearest ward, hoping I’d get one glimpse of him. And as I was starting to scuttle up the main stairway, what should I do but run into a party of folks that was coming down from the wards. Some of the doctors and officers were with them. And I pretty near collided, bang slap, with the gentleman who was coming down the stairs a step or two in front of the rest. I stopped and said: “Excuse me, sir. I wasn’t looking.” And then I _did_ look.