“Have you any news?” asked Alice, anxiously.
“Here is a letter from Edmund.”
“Then he is safe, thank God!”
“Not exactly. The poor child was shot through the thigh. Mr. Whacker is unhurt.”
“And Captain Smith?”
Lucy’s lips quivered.
“Not killed?” cried Alice, clasping her hands.
“No, but dangerously wounded,—very. Here is Edmund’s letter to mother.”
Alice read it aloud. He gave an account of the battle, making light of his own wound (“The rascals popped me in the second joint”), but represented his captain’s as very serious. The captain had advised him to remain in Harrisonburg, but had himself gone to Taylor’s Springs, four miles distant. As for himself, he was in luck.
“Who do you think is my nurse? Why, Miss Mary Rolfe! The battle caught her in Middletown, nursing a Confederate soldier; and when, in the afternoon, the enemy showed signs of an intention to attack, the captain sent me, with an ambulance-wagon, to Miss Mary. I was to tell her that in my opinion (that is what he told me to say) it would be safest for her to move her patient to the rear. And here she is now; and a gentler nurse no one ever had. He never mentioned her name to me; but she tells me that she knew him slightly, once. It is a pity he went off to Taylor’s, for she would have nursed him, too, I am sure.