“The title I gave him,” said I, “he gained by promotion in our Army.” “Our army! I knew it, by the way he talked; then he’s a volunteer?” “Yes.” “Ever been in a battle?” “Many of them.” “Wounded?” “Often.” “That’s bully. But what battles? Fair Oaks? That’s where I was hit.” “He never told me so, but I should judge his hardest fights were before the breaking out of this rebellion.” “Ah, in Mexico?” “No, I never heard of his being in Mexico.” “A foreigner?” “No, I believe him to be an American.” “It can’t be, then, for he looks too young for our other war. Didn’t he tell you what battles?” “No, he never told me, nor did any of his friends.” “Then how the ----, I beg ten thousand pardons, miss, but how can you know he was in them?” “Because it is my privilege to be a Private in the same Army. I said _our_ Army was the one in which he had gained promotion; and It’s peculiarity is, that It will receive as recruits both women and children.” Impossible as it may appear to you, he fixed his eyes upon me with an air of bewilderment, and remained perfectly silent. I continued: “Although I am not eligible for promotion as he is, but must remain a Private always, I have had some of the same battles to fight, and----” “Psha! you’ve been fooling me all this time, and I never saw it.” I smiled. “Not fooling,” I said, “but answering a question you asked the other day. Have you forgotten when you said ‘Little you know of battles!’ that I replied, ‘And yet, maybe, I have fought harder ones than you ever did?’ You then asked me what under the sun I could mean? I promised to tell you, and I have only done so in a round-about way. Have you forgotten one thing more? What was it I asked you to give up, when you said you had rather be shot?” His color rose, but he said nothing. “Doesn’t that prove that my battles, and those of that ‘nice man,’ as you term the bishop, are harder to fight than yours?” “Well, it’s truth you’re saying; I’d liever go back to my regiment to-morrow, wounded as I am, than do what you want, though I know you’re right, too;” and warmly shaking my hand, he drew the cover over his head, and I left him to meditate upon the two Armies. You will say that the strain after originality in such conversations, is not likely to be an over-tax of the mental powers; but you must remember, that what to you may be but a wearying platitude, may be a seed, to one who receives the parallel as a novelty, to germinate in later years. We can but try all means, and leave events to God. THE CONTRAST. “I wish to goodness they would not send their men here, just to die!” Such was the exclamation, in no very amiable tone, which greeted my ear, as I opened the door of one of the wards of our hospital. “What is the matter, Wilson?” said I, to our usually cheerful wardmaster.