Now, it so happened that Commodore Rodney had taken up a like notion concerning his daughter and Adjutant Blythe. "Blythe is too jovial, and Faith is too serious," said the Commodore. "They could never sail smoothly in the same ship on a whole life's course." An odd feature of this trouble was that each of the fathers pooh-hooed the objection of the other, and each uncle was highly pleased with his niece's choice! The best of Brownies, like other people, have their whimsies. Grace and Sophia had no such sorrows to vex them, and were looking forward to their wedding on the next Thanksgiving Day.
Enough for the present of these disappointments and hopes. The night watch in the Hospital has just been changed, as have also the outer sentinels. Blythe, for it is he who attends to this latter duty, has sounded a soft note on the whistle that hangs against the rear door of the Sanitary Tent. It is the signal that the Nurses are wanted in the Hospital. Night duty is divided between them, two of them always watching in the Hospital, while the others sleep in the marquée. Agatha and Grace have the first watch to-night, and pass into the Hospital. But Faith knows whose lips had sounded the call, and comes in to exchange a few words with her lover.
Why should she, too, have come back with a tear upon her cheek?
The light is turned down low in the fox-fire lantern. The yellow hospital flag flaps lazily against the staff. The full moon hangs over Hillside. The tramp, tramp of the sentinel grows dim and clear by turns as he recedes from or nears the door. The noises of the camp have died away and silence reigns at last over plain, fort and field. Both Brownies and Pixies are weary with the day's battling and sleep well. Faith and Sophia, too, after a long talk about their trials and their loves, their hopes, fears and joys, have fallen asleep in each other's arms.
The stars that mark the midnight hour are fast hastening into the zenith. The sentinels walk their beats with weary pace. The relief guards will soon be on the rounds. Faith and Sophia stir in their sleep uneasily as though dimly conscious that the whistle will soon call them to duty. There is a soft touch, as the touch of an angel's finger, upon their cheeks. It seems to rest upon their eyes, their lips. It is pressed against their nostrils. It stays their breathing. They turn restlessly on their couch. They toss their arms, but the soft touch is on them, too. Cannot they awake?