The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-03-30

was not improving g-he slept too much
 but Bill knew.
 When I get we'll" he told himself, "she won't come any more. I don't
 know but I'd just as lief die.' But the
 next time he heard the familiar rust Hing of the dress he opened his eyes and
 found a sweet-faced woman standing
 near his cot, and she blushed and turn
 ing away when she saw him looking at
 her. And then Bill wished he had kept
 his eyes closed. He began to feel very
 funny about it all
 There was something about her face that puzzled him. As one pauses and listens to the strains of some old for gotten melody, wonders where he heard 1t before, remembers and then recalls the associa tions with which 1t is linked,
 so Bill gazed at that gentle, peaceful face, the faded blue eyes with the crowsfeet in the corners, and thought of a girl he used to know in a little town in the hills. Bill had loved that girl.
 That was why he went into the army. | It was all so long ago that it seemed like a dream, and yet the light which still fingered in the eyes of that kindly woman illumined his dream to a sem blance of reality and In mind he fol- lowed the light down the devious grooves of change until the face of his old love shone vididly through the veil Iof years. Bill was puzzled to know why that should be.
 She came back the next afternoon bringing with her a long pipe and ssve- ral bags of tobacco. "The doctor says you may smoke to-morrow, and maybe I'll come and read to you"
 Thanks, lady" said Bill who felt as one must feel to whom an angel has stopped.
 And she did come, and she came the day after, and although she visited many soldiers, it was Bill to whom she used to read of the doings at Montauk Pcint or listened while Bill in his sim pie way told the story of his campaigns Once she told Bill of her little home on the hills, where she hired a girl to milk the cows and a man to do the chores and help raise garden truck for the market ever since her husband had died. And when she told him this the light of Blll's dream became light in deed He knew now why she had been hliIu u mn. CtIduSC tllOuSJlo DC5All to fill his mind and oftentimes he blushed behind his grizzled whiskers. l The woman began to be known as Bills widow, and they made mild sentimental Jests at his expense, but Bill smiled
 T used to know her when she was a girl, was his only reply.
 But there was one thing of which l Bills bunkies were certain, and that was if her Kindness to him was due to the fact that he had known her when she was girl the same explanation | could not be applied to her kindness to the youngest soldier in the ward. | Merely boy, he was, and he had blue eyes, too, much like the widows. A ] shell had taken off his foot at the ankle l and he spent most of his time talking | of the pension and the two cork legs a | year that Uncle Sam was to give him. | He had been brought into Ward 15 only | recently But he had not been there a day before every one knew that Bill had a rival There were some who had | seen her cry and kiss the boy when she first saw hif, and some had 1t that the boy cried, too, although this was not generally believed.
 One day she sat beside the boy, talk ing earnestly the whole tirne for nearly an hour, and she stayed with Bill only ten minutes. For she was in a hurry, she said Then it was that Bill req lized, as had his comrades long before him. And then he blushed again. and felt very foolish Just little bitter, too, he felt, and in a dull way 1t struck him that this was not the first time she had made him feel this way. But the first time was many. many long years ago. The next time she called Bill made believe that he was asleep, and
 
 l.,