Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1873-09-05

10 ballet. Here IL Is in its plainest form.
Miss Winthrop, 1t shall be your privilege
to vote first. Would you under any cir
cunstances, DO willing to marry--a-nig-
ger2"
"How absurd |" said Edith, her bright
face contracting with momentary express
sion of disgust.
"Misu Edith,' began Sandys, his voice
trenfdlous with emotion, his eyes full of
pathetically childlike entreaty. What he
would have said heaven knows; he had
evidently forgotten that he had any audit
ors besides the girl he addressed but Just
at that moment there was shrill scream
aud great commotion in the bevy of chill
dren. We all fastened to the scene there
was no serious accident, only child had
fallen from the swing; but our little party
thus broken up, did not reunite.
As our young people paired Off for the
return noticed that Sandys walked with
Edith, and 1 afterwards passed them as
they stood by Deacon Winthrop's gate. He
was talking rapidly and earnestly. She
igD.ibnsess as statue, but fancied that in
the moonlight could see traces of tears on
her face.
Next day it was said that Sandys had left
for home very suddenly. He had started
on foot early in the morning, and all his
belongings were sent after him in the mail
coach to the next town. His abrupt de-
parture made nine days wonder, of
course, and many were the stories framed
in explanation. The one which gained the
greatest degree of credit was this he had
been slave, the son of a father who dared
not acknowledge him in his own home.
He had confessed to Edith his love and the
secret of his parentage as WE'LL and in his
despair OF her answer he had resolved TO
leave place which no longer could have
any attraction for him. Edith neither con-
tirmed nor denied this account. She was
blandly unconscious, or smilingly indiffer-
ent, when the subject was broached in her
presence. Indeed, her apparent insensibil-
lily was too extreme to be regarded as alto
gether sincere by those who had remarked
the interest, never disguised, with which
she had regarded the absent young man.
Sandys never returned; the stirring
events of the following months occupied
our hearts and minds to the exclusion of
all local topics and he was forgotten. In
the fall we organized wide awake associa-
tions and took part in torchlight process
sions. All winter long the gloomy antici-
paion.of war smouldered in our breasts,
to be startled into flame by the shock that
reused the whole country. Our young men
were missed, first one and then another
from their accustomed places. Our girls
made havelocks and knit stockings and
wrote innumerable letters.
AS you know, obtained a position as
surgeon of volunteers. Edith and Laura,
despite much opposition on the part of
their friends, succeeded as they generally
did, in following their own sweet wills, and
it happened, that in June, 1864, they were
acting as nurses under my direction, at the
naval hospital at Annapolis. l confess that
l at first doubted whether these young girls
had courage and capacity TO fulfil the try
,iys duiio7 demanded of thom, hnt my
doubt gave place TO admiring wonder as l
noted the unshrinking firmness, the grave,
plying gentlcness, they brought to the per-
forming of their work.
Our patients were mostly exchanged pris-
oners in every stage of debility and loath-
some disease. 1t is idle for me to speak of
the sickening horrors we witnessed, the in
describable suffering we strove, too often
vainly, TO relieve.
One day / was summoned to q new case
n hopeless one, as I saw at the first glance.
As we afterwards learned the prisoner, as
an officer of negro regiment, had been
treated with more than usual severity, and
his release had only been determined on
when it was found that he was in dying
condition.
Injured as l was 10 such sights, yet on be-
holding the ghastly figure l involuntarily
shrank and shivered. No such weakness
was betrayed by the brave girl who had
reached the scene before me. Tenderly as
his mother might, she lifted the matted
hair and bathed the shrunken temples, and
strove with anxious attention to gain some
sign that the poor patient realized that in
his last moments he was cared for by friend
ly hands.
Suddenly the drawn muscles of his face
relaxed the mouth fell into natural curves,
the glazed eyes frightened, and in that mo-
mentary TRANSPORTATION we recognized
Robert Sandys. Half lifting his head, he
gazed into the face of his nurse. Edith -
he said and almost in the utterance he fell
back on his pillow, dead.
The next day we buried him. We three
who had once known him while living,
snatched from our pressing cares brief
time to follow his remains to the grave.
M RAJ, al I,,, ,;,l,
was read. Such tears were but a natural
| tribute to render to the memory of the man
who had loved her. "And whom she had
| loved ?" 1 cannot say that. Frank and
| gracious as she is ordinarily, she is also Gu
riously reticent on subjects which concern
her nearly, and not the dearest of friends
might venture to put such question to
| her.
Well, our war experiences are SO far he
hind us in the past that sometimes they
seem TO us almost like distressing dreams
which we do not willingly recall, although
they will haunt us unbidden. Our village
in externals is not greatly changed. Good
DR.. Ab'ott is dead his place is filed by a
Congregationals minister of the modern
type-ionder of his horse than of his book
and much better at a lyceum lecture than
a doctrinal sermon. Laura is his helpful
and popular wife. From the young doct oil
have become the middle-aged one, and
my company is no longer sought by the
youths and maldens but / am invited to
elderly tea drinkings, and expected to en-
tertain spinsters and widows whose ages
are supposed TO coincide with my own.
Edith, she herself says, is an old maid
but she does not in the least fulfil the con-
ventonal idea of one. She is entirely hei
own mistress, and, her means not being in