"'I will try, love,' he replied, 'for I am so cold!'
chair,' I whispered. Poor Ernest! his eyes flashed. 'No! No!' said he, 'if he has not the decency to offer it, you shall not speak to him!'
"Of course, I would not irritate him by opposition, but placed an ordinary chair before the fire, and, supporting him into it, held his head on my shoulder, while I chafed his benumbed hands. In the meanwhile, the wail of the baby did not help to quiet us, nor to shorten the time of waiting; and it seemed as if John would never make his appearance, nor the room I had ordered be prepared. By my direction, nurse rang the bell. I inquired of the very placid individual who answered it, whether the room was ready for us, and upon being told that they were making the fire, entreated the emblem of serenity to hasten operations, and at once to bring me a cup of hot tea. Minutes seemed hours to me, as you may suppose, and the dull eyes that were fastened upon us from the centre of the stuffed chair, I so longed for, really made me nervous. I felt as though it might be some horrid ghoul, rather than anything human, thus looking upon our misery. 'Good G——, Lu!' said Ernest, at last, 'isn't the bed ready yet?'
"I could bear it no longer. Gently withdrawing my support from the weary, weary head, I flew to my boy, snatched him from nurse, and signifying my design to her, we united our powers, and, laying baby on the sofa, we succeeded in pushing it up to the side of the fire-place. Then, while I hushed the child on my breast, we piled up our wrappings and placed my husband upon the couch, so as to rest his poor wounded frame (you know, Colonel, his spine was injured). The groan, half of relief and half of torture, that broke from his lips, as he rested his head, was like to be the 'last straw' that broke my heart—but the soldier's wife! How often did I repeat to myself, during that long journey:
'Remember thou'rt a soldier's wife,
Those tears but ill become thee!'
"Well! by this time, John made his appearance, and, consigning his master temporarily to his care, I took nurse with me, and went to see what a woman's ready hand could do in expediting matters elsewhere. When showed to the room we were expected to occupy, I found it so filled with smoke, and so dreadfully cold, as to be wholly uninhabitable, and in despair sent for the steward, or whoever he was, to whom I had given directions at first. No other room with two beds could be secured. By the glimmering light of the small lamp in the hand of the Irishman, who was laboring with the attempt at a fire, I investigated a little; the smouldering coals belched forth volumes of smoke into my face. Nothing daunted by this ('twas not the 'smoke of battle,' though I felt as though in the midst of a conflict of life and death), I bade the man remove the blower. Behold the draught closed by the strip of stone sometimes used for that purpose, after a hard coal fire is fully ignited! I think, Colonel, you would have admired the laconic, imperiously cool tone and manner with which I speedily effected the removal of the entire mass of cold hard coal, substituted for it, light, dry wood, and covering up my boy, as he still rested in my arms, dissipated the smoke that contended with the close, shut-up sort of air in the room, for disagreeability, by opening the windows, had the most comfortable looking of the beds drawn near the fire, and opened to air and warm, ordered up the trunks we wanted, opened them, hung a warm flannel dressing-gown near the fire, placed his slippers and everything else Ernest would want just where they would be wanted, near the best chair I could secure, and the table that was to receive his supper when he should be ready for it, and, in short put the matter through, as Ernest would say, with the speed of desperation. It was wonderful how quickly all this, and more, was effected by the people about me chiefly through my ability to tell them exactly what to do and how to do it. Excuse me if I boast; it was the deep calmness of despair that inspired me! Now I can smile at the look of blank amazement with which Paddy received my announcement of the necessity of taking out all the coals from the grate, before he could hope to kindle a fire, and the stare of the man of affairs for the D—— House, as he entered upon the field of my efforts to say that tea was ready."
"There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous!" I exclaimed, laughing, in spite of my sympathy with my fair friend. "And what became of the barbarian in the large chair?"
"Oh, when I returned to the parlor to have Ernest removed to our own room, there he sat, still, lolling comfortably back in his chair, with his hat on, and his feet laid up before him, and apparently as much occupied as ever in staring at the strangers, and no more