The girl passed her hand over her eyes as if to clear her vision. Oh, was it not all a horrible dream? The heaped-up ruins, the bleeding, mangled forms of the dead and dying, the shrieks, the groans, the cries for help, the running to and fro of those who were trying to give it, the frenzied search for missing loved ones, the wail of anguish over the wounded and the slain! What was that they were bearing past her? Could that be her mother’s voice asking in quivering, agonized tones for husband and child? She sprang up and ran after the rude litter on which the crushed and bleeding form was borne along toward a farm-house a few rods distant. She caught sight of the face, white with the pallor of death and convulsed with pain. A gleam of joy shot over it as the eyes fell on the face and figure of Floy. “My darling! safe, thank God!” came from the pale, quivering lips. “Mother, mother!” cried the girl. “Be comforted, darling; I can bear it; ’twill not be for long,” gasped the sufferer. They carried her into the house and laid her on a bed. Floy knelt by her side, grasping the dear hand in hers, laying it to her cheek, pressing it to her lips, passionately weeping with a grief that seemed to rend her heart asunder. “Floy, dearest, it is all right. God’s will be done. He knows best. He will comfort you.” The quick ear of the girl scarcely caught the low-breathed words, and with the last Mrs. Kemper fainted. At the same moment a gentleman came hastily in and stepped to the bedside. Instinctively Floy comprehended his errand, even ere he laid his finger on the pulse or raised the shawl that half concealed the shattered form. She rose, outwardly calm and collected. “Can my mother live?” she asked. “For some hours,” he said, looking pityingly into the grief-stricken face of his questioner. “Where is she hurt?” “Poor child! how shall I tell you? Her lower limbs are completely crushed, and even amputation would not save her life.” Floy caught at the bedstead for support, a low cry of heart-breaking anguish bursting from her lips. “Oh, mother, mother! And my father!” she gasped, “oh, where is he?” “The gentleman who occupied the same seat with this lady? Ah, my dear child, he is done with pain.” The girl sank upon her knees again, hiding her face in her hands and trembling in every fibre. So sudden, so terrible were these successive blows that the very earth seemed slipping from beneath her feet. “Dear Lord, her heart is overwhelmed; lead her to the Rock that is higher than she.” The words were spoken by an old woman in homely attire who was assisting the physician in his efforts to restore Mrs. Kemper to consciousness. The tones were very tender and pitiful, and the aged hand rested lightly for an instant upon the bowed head. “Oh, could not _one_ have been spared to me?” cried Floy in a burst of agony. “Fatherless! motherless! oh, that I too had been taken!”