I have been told that, to this day, many people personally unknown to him, whose fate it was to be imprisoned in that beleaguered town at that time, and who were familiar with the nervous figure and plain, intense countenance of the Northern nurse, as he passed, terrible day after terrible day, to his post, cannot hear of him, even now, without that suffusion of look by which we hold back tears; and that, when his name took on, as it did, a more than local reputation, they were unable to speak it because of choking voices. I have often wished that he knew this. It was the custom in Calhoun to pay the nurses at short, stated intervals,--I think once a week, on Saturday nights. The first time that Hope was summoned to receive his wages, he evinced marked emotion, too genuine not to be one of surprise and repugnance. "I had not thought,--" he began, and stood, coloring violently. "You earn your five dollars a day, if anybody in Calhoun does," urged the official, with kindly brusqueness. "It is not right; I do not wish to take the money," said the nurse, with agitation. "I do not wish to be paid for--saving--human life. I did not come to the fever district to make money; I came to save life--_to save life_!" he added, in a quick whisper. He had not slept for four nights, and seemed, they noticed, more than usually nervous in his manner. "The money is yours," insisted the treasurer. "Very well," said Hope, after a long silence; and no more was said about it. He took his wages and walked away up the street, absorbed in thought.