She would never know how the simple acts of her life, springing from the hidden centre that was deeper even than her every-day thought, was to bear fruit on wide-spread branches.
"And yet we—I—do nothing. I should have to go empty-handed."
She cast about for some words of comfort. As girl or woman Kathie Alston would never be able to realize all the frivolousness, to say nothing of vanity, selfishness, and deeper sins, crowded into this man's life, which still looked so fair by outward comparison with others.
"Ever since Mr. Morrison offered to go in Uncle Robert's place this verse has been lingering in my mind: 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' It seems to me that it doesn't mean physical life altogether, but all the times and places when we take something precious out of our own lives and put it into that of others. And every man who goes now may be called upon to suffer in some other's stead. If he do it bravely, is it not a little of the good fruit? I can't explain all I mean, only just as the Saviour loved us we ought to love every one else."
Edward Meredith had listened to many an eloquent sermon, and dissected it in a purely intellectual fashion, his heart never warming with any inward grace, or hungering after the true bread. But he understood now the secret of this little girl's life. Not doctrine, not so much creed, or form, or rule, "but the taking something precious out of her daily existence and noiselessly placing it in that of others." And the same love which enabled her to do this rendered her brave, pure, and sweet. A child's religion, that a year or two ago he would have sneered at, and now he had come to learn of her because he was too proud to ask others, and perhaps ashamed.
"But you had a substitute!" she said, presently, bethinking herself.
"Yes. He has served his time out honorably, has had the good fortune to come home without harm of any kind. You remember how Mackenzie bantered me last winter, though he was in dead earnest. But the country is at her extremest need now; if Grant, Sherman, and our other generals, are strengthened by good reinforcements, it seems to me that in six months we might have peace. I have done a good deal of holiday soldiering in my life, but this is to be sober earnest."
He looked as if it might be.
"When will you go?"
"We start for Washington on Saturday morning."