My heart sank within me. I was expecting Lizzie B----, but I had anticipated meeting a very different-looking person. Every letter of recommendation had said: “Although Miss B---- is young in years, she is mature in character, and is of the highest type of American womanhood, and will command respect anywhere. We commend her to you as one of our noblest women, who will be equal to any position, and one who will never fail nor falter in the line of duty.” I had naturally expected a woman of stately and commanding presence, and one who would be equal to any emergency; but she seemed to me to be only a child in years and experience. “I have ordered up my baggage,” she said with childlike simplicity, “and I have brought my little melodeon with me. I thought it might be useful.” Sure enough, when her luggage came, and the box containing the instrument was opened, she took out the smallest melodeon I ever saw. “What shall I do with that dear little child from Rhode Island and her little melodeon?” I said to my secretary, Mary Shelton, now Mrs. Judge Houston of Burlington, Iowa. But she could not solve the problem. When the heavy work of the day was through, weary and full of care and anxiety, we joined Miss B---- in the parlor. After some conversation, she said,-- “Would you like to have me play and sing?” We assented, and she sat down at the instrument and began to play and sing. We were amazed and charmed. It seemed as though the curtains of heaven were lifted, and the songs of an angel were floating down upon us. The tones of the little melodeon were soft and clear, and the voice of the singer was sweet and remarkably sympathetic. Her notes thrilled one; there was life and spirit in them. After listening to her for an hour or more, weariness and anxiety were gone, and _I knew just what to do with Lizzie B----_. There were tens of thousands of aching and burdened hearts all about us; and she, with her wonderful gift of song, could lift some drooping spirit, and pour the balm of peace into some wounded, fainting hearts. I took her and her melodeon to Campbell Hospital the next morning, and told her to sing as she had opportunity. The sick and wounded were quartered in great wooden barracks eighty feet long. There were rows of cots on either side of the room. That very day she went into one of these wards. She had never been in a hospital before; and when she entered and saw the long rows of cots, and all the faces of the men, whether they were lying down or sitting up, turned towards her, she grew faint and dizzy, and her courage almost failed her. She seemed powerless to do anything but to walk on down the long aisle. At last a soldier called to her from his bed,-- “Say, miss, won’t you write a letter for me?” It was a great relief to have the oppressive silence broken and to have something to do. As she sat down beside his cot, she asked,-- “To whom shall I write?” “My mother.”