“That bottle, standing on the table at your side, Corning, is marked to be taken by the teaspoonful; perhaps, if you were to empty it at a dose, it might have the same effect. I never recommended such immoderate laughter.” “Oh, please don’t speak of it. It brings it up so.” The remembrance was quite too much, and one fit of laughter followed another, strangely interspersed with groans of pain, from the soreness of the muscles. That merry laugh was at all times most contagious; the men quickly crowded round, joining in it without asking any reason, and we bade fair to have the scene of yesterday re-enacted. To preserve gravity was quite impossible, there was something so irresistibly ludicrous in the whole affair, but I felt that it must be stopped. “Corning! this will never do; you must control yourself; you will be ill; and besides, you are disturbing our sick men.” “I think, Miss ----,” said he, with a violent effort at composure, “if you won’t take it hard, if you’d just go away; if I didn’t see you, I might get quiet.” “Certainly I will. I won’t ‘take it hard,’ at all, and I will come back when you are quieter.” “Oh! please no! Oh! don’t come back; if you do, it’ll be as bad as ever again.” The idea was quite enough; and the last sound I heard, as I withdrew my mirth-inspiring presence, was another of those clear, ringing laughs. How I longed to have the same effect upon the poor fellows in another ward, where I had vainly racked my brain for many days, to call up even a faint smile on their depressed and weary faces. I sent everything over to the sergeant’s ward through the day, not risking my dangerous presence there; and even at night judged it better not to go over to say goodbye, although it was Saturday night, and my duties for the week were over. When I came again, my merry friend had been returned to his regiment, and that had been our final interview. I have often wondered since, how (if ever) we should meet again? Whether that last laughing parting will linger in his mind, or whether its memory shall have been crushed out by the stern realities of war? NOTE.--The problem has been solved. To our amazement, the week after the Gettysburg fight, Little Corning walked into the ladies’ room at the hospital, fresh from the field--or rather, anything but fresh. Tattered and battered, soiled and moiled; his head tied up, and looking very much, on the whole, as though he had been in an Irish row. He had been wounded in the temple by a shell; but not dangerously, and had hastened to “his old home,” as he called it, as soon as he arrived, although to his great regret, as well as ours, he had been placed in another hospital.