crimson in the West holds her thought the longest. She loves,
understands color: it speaks to her of the Day waiting just behind this.
Her eyes fill with tears, she knows not why: her life seems rounded,
complete, wrapt in a great peace; the grave at Manassas, and that
planted with moss on the hill yonder, are in it; they only make her joy
in living more tender and holy.

He has come now; stops to look at his wife's face, as though its
fairness and meaning were new to him always. There is no look in her
eyes he loves so well to see as that which tells her Master is near her.
Sometimes she thinks he too----But she knows that "according to her
faith it shall be unto her." They are alone to-night; even Bone is
asleep. But in the midst of a crowd, they who love each other are alone
together: as the first man and woman stood face to face in the great
silent world, with God looking down, and only their love between them.


The same June evening lights the windows of a Western hospital. There is
not a fresh meadow-scented breath it gives that does not bring to some
sick brain a thought of home, in a New-England village, or a Georgia
rice-field. The windows are open; the pure light creeping into poisoned
rooms carries with it a Sabbath peace, they think. One man stops in his
hurried work, and looking out, grows cool in its tranquil calm. So the
sun used to set in old Virginia, he thinks. A tall, slab-sided man, in
the dress of a hospital-nurse: a worn face, but quick, sensitive; the
patients like it better than any other: it looks as if the man had
buried great pain in his life, and come now into its Indian-summer days.
The eyes are childish, eager, ready to laugh as cry,--the voice warm,
chordant,--the touch of the hand unutterably tender.