best in coming home,—whether it would n't have been better if his young master had been left to take his chances with the rest in the rude field hospitals.
For it was perfectly clear to Plato that the home people were thoroughly demoralized. "Ole miss,"—this was Jack's mother, a woman of as clear a head and as steady a hand as anybody in the world, a woman of unfailing resources, as it seemed to her friends and dependents,—was now as nervous and as fidgety and as helpless as any other woman. "Young mistiss,"—this was Jack's sister Flora, a girl with as much fire and courage as are given to women,—was in a state of collapse. Now, if it had been somebody else's son, somebody else's brother, who had been brought to their house wounded, these ladies would have been entirely equal to the occasion. But it was Jack, of all persons in the world; it was the son, the brother. Courage fled like a shadow, and all resources were dissipated as if they had been so much vapor.
The wounded man had slept fairly well during the night, but in the early hours of morning his fever began to rise, as was to be
