At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 98: what you’re looking at

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

AT A GIRLS MERCY. 87 off every day in the midst of dangers as great, if not so apparent, as any of the army, with mamma so ill, up stairs, away from us, and the dear boys out fighting for us. But, oh,” she added, brightly, with a swift change of manner, seeing the shadow fall- ing upon her father’s face, “I am so proud of my dear old papa and my big brave brothers. It is good to be a man and go to battle, instead of just a woman shut in at home, unable even to do the least thing to help on the struggle that means life or death to us aS well as you men. Itisso good even to be as Helen is——’’ She paused and smoothed still more softly the hand upon her own. She had not intended to let her heart’s desire run away with her tongue in this manner, for she had kept any word of her inner wish to be in the worst of the fighting, if only as nurse, from her father’s ears, and now here she had almost tola him what she so longed to do. “But, after all, there’s nothing so sweet as to be at home with those one loves, is there, papa?”’ Her brave smile did not blind him in the slightest degree. His own face darkened, and he only let his hand lie loosely in her clasp, as his eyes looked ‘past her out into the fields where women were doing their best, as well as the men, for the victory of the country and of right. He had long known this se- cret wish of his daughter to go with her friend into the hospitals, or in the field, to nurse the wounded and dying of those who had fought the good fight for their country and their God, but he had kept the knowledge to himself, for he dared not let her go when the sweet woman up in the quiet room might pass from them at any moment, and he could not have her daughter from the house when she Eomicboo co m CS