The afternoon sun shone benignantly through a yellow dust-haze. Peace lay everywhere. Peace, flowers, bird-song—and the brooding hush of afternoon—in the very heart of a great war.
A white cottage, set somewhat back from the lane behind its own patch of green lawn, bore across its porch-front the sign:
THIRD AMBULANCE CORPS
Army of the Potomac
Temporary Headquarters
On the lawn two or three uniformed nurses sat in rocking chairs, scraping lint and sewing. On cots along the narrow porch lay several gaunt-faced, partly dressed convalescents.
Dad instinctively drew his horse to a standstill as he read the sign. The sewing nurses on the lawn glanced up as he halted.
One of them—silvery-haired little woman in gray—gave a joyous exclamation and, springing to her feet, ran across to the open gate and out into the lane to greet the rider.
On the instant Dad was off his horse and advancing with gladly outstretched hands toward her.
“Emily!” was all he could find voice to say just at first.
“Oh, I was so hoping you’d find where we were, James!” she hailed him. “And that you’d come to see me before I left.”
“Left? The corps is moved again?”