"How can one be homesick who has no home?" answered the girl, smiling sadly.
One day the principal of the school asked her if she would go on Saturdays for a while, and assist those who were at work in the Aid Rooms for the soldiers' hospitals. Anne consented languidly; but once within the dingy walls, languor vanished. There personal sorrow seemed small in the presence of ghastly lists of articles required for the wounded and dying. At least those she loved were not confronting cannon. Those in charge of the rooms soon learned to expect her, this young teacher, a stranger in Weston, who with a settled look of sadness on her fair face had become the most diligent worker there. She came more regularly after a time, for the school had closed, the long vacation begun.
On Sunday, the 21st of July, Anne was in church; it was a warm day; fans waved, soft air came in and played around the heads of the people, who, indolent with summer ease, leaned back comfortably, and listened with drowsy peacefulness to the peaceful sermon. At that very moment, on a little mill-stream near Washington, men were desperately fighting the first great battle of the war, the Sunday battle of Bull Run. The remnant of the Northern army poured over Long Bridge into the capital during all that night, a routed, panic-stricken mob.
The North had suffered a great defeat; the South had gained a great victory. And both sides paused.
The news flashed over the wires and into Weston, and the town was appalled. Never in the four long years that followed was there again a day so filled with stern astonishment to the entire North as that Monday after Bull Run. The Aid Rooms, where Anne worked during her leisure hours, were filled with helpers now; all hearts were excited and in earnest. West Virginia was the field to which their aid was sent, a mountain region whose streams were raised in an hour into torrents, and whose roads were often long sloughs of despond, through which the soldiers of each side gloomily pursued each other by turns, the slowness of the advancing force only equalled by that of the pursued, which was encountering in front the same disheartening difficulties. The men in hospital on the edges of this region, worn out with wearying marches, wounded in skirmishes, stricken down by the insidious fever which haunts the river valleys, suffered as much as those who had the names of great battles wherewith to identify themselves; but they lacked the glory.
One sultry evening, when the day's various labor was ended, Anne, having made a pretense of eating in her lonely room, went across to the bank of the lake to watch the sun set in the hazy blue water, and look northward toward the island. She was weary and sad: where were now the resolution and the patience with which she had meant to crown her life? You did not know, poor Anne, when you framed those lofty purposes, that suffering is just as hard to bear whether one is noble or ignoble, good or bad. In the face of danger the heart is roused, and in the exaltation of determination forgets its pain; it is the long monotony of dangerless days that tries the spirit hardest.
A letter had come to her that morning, bearing a Boston postmark; the address was in the neat, small handwriting of Jeanne-Armande's friend. Anne, remembering that it was this Boston address which she had sent to her grandaunt, opened the envelope eagerly. But it was only the formal letter of a lawyer. Miss Vanhorn had died, on the nineteenth of June, in Switzerland, and the lawyer wrote to inform "Miss Anne Douglas" that a certain portrait, said in the will to be that of "Alida Clanssen," had been bequeathed to her by his late client, and would be forwarded to her address, whenever she requested it. Anne had expected nothing, not even this. But an increased solitariness came upon her as she thought of that cold rigid face lying under the turf far away in Switzerland—the face of the only relative left to her.
The sun had disappeared; it was twilight. The few loiterers on the bank were departing. The sound of carriage wheels roused her, and turning she saw that a carriage had approached, and that three persons had alighted and were coming toward her. They proved to be the principal of the school and the president of the Aid Society, accompanied by one of her associates. They had been to Anne's home, and learning where she was, had followed her. It seemed that one of the city physicians had gone southward a few days before to assist in the regimental hospitals on the border; a telegraphic dispatch had just been received from him, urging the Aid Society to send without delay three or four nurses to that fever-cursed district, where men were dying in delirium for want of proper care. It was the first personal appeal which had come to Weston; the young Aid Society felt that it must be answered. But who could go? Among the many workers at the Aid Rooms, few were free; wives, mothers, and daughters, they could give an hour or two daily to the work of love, but they could not leave their homes. One useful woman, a nurse by profession, was already engaged; another, a lady educated and refined, whose hair had been silvered as much by affliction as by age, had offered to go. There were two, then; but they ought to send four. Many had been asked during that afternoon, but without success. The society was at its wits' end. Then some one thought of Miss Douglas.
She was young, but she was also self-controlled and physically strong. Her inexperience would not be awkwardness; she would obey with intelligence and firmness the directions given her. Under the charge of the two older women, she could go—if she would!
It would be but for a short time—two weeks only; at the end of that period the society expected to relieve these first volunteers with regularly engaged and paid nurses. The long vacation had begun; as teacher, she would lose nothing; her expenses would be paid by the society. She had seemed so interested; it would not be much more to go for a few days in person; perhaps she would even be glad to go. All this they told her eagerly, while she stood before them in silence. Then, when at last their voices ceased, and they waited for answer, she said, slowly, looking from one to the other: "I could go, if it were not for one obstacle. I have music scholars, and I can not afford to lose them. I am very poor."