At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 164: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AT A GIRL'S MERCY, 153 strong, and willing to fight? Was she not going in such a little while to take up her work in the battle? Could she not, for the little while that she was with the home folks, put herself aside, and leave only the memory of loving thoughts with them? They would so gladly have given her anything in the world she could have asked for, they were so readily _ letting her go from them when they did need her— she knew they did need her comfort, though not so much as those sufferers out on the fields were needing the care that would help them back to life, or ease their dying—and should she not put her own thoughts aside for their needs while yet she re- mained with them inthe dear old Hall where her eyes had first seen the light? She lifted her tender face, bright as her sunny spirit could make it, as she added, for his comfort: ‘When your little Nan comes back from the war, and the boys are here, and the Hall is as noisy and as topsy-turvy as it used to be, and you sit under the vines on the lawn with mamma, watching our squab- bling, you will forget there ever was such a terrible thing as this war, papa dearest. And we will be just your bad, naughty children come back, to be scolded and frowned upon, as you just now frowned | when you were thinking of that precious coward of ours.”’ . She laughed and shook her head, with its curls aquiver, and let her own heart-sorrows rest behind the veil of her womanhood and pride, and her own thoughts fade with the thoughts that must come with this grave, brave old face before her, and the thought of how much it had borne during the past years. She patted the rough hand, and still looked merrily into the grave face, determined, ere she. =) Gomicbooks (e{ 0) ~