more or less elaborate workmanship, disposed upon the branches of a little tree carved of pine; a large collection of crosses, hearts, clasped hands, dogs’-heads, and other trinkets, in bone, some white, and some stained black; a careful drawing of a crooked and grotesque old negro, in a frame of carved wood; and, finally, a suit of clothes hung against the wall in the position of a human figure, consisting of a jaunty scarlet cap, with a little flag of the United States fastened to the front by an army-badge; a basque, skirt, and trousers of blue cloth, with a worn and clumsy pair of boots below.  From a belt fastened across the waist hung a little barrel, a flask, and by a wide ribbon of red, white and blue, a boatswain’s silver whistle.

Singular ornaments, we have said, for a young girl’s sleeping-room, and yet, in this case, touchingly appropriate and harmonious:  for they were the keepsakes given to the daughter of the regiment by the six hundred brave men, who each loved her as his own; they were the mementoes of a year in Dora Darling’s life, of such vivid experiences that it threatened to make all the years that should come after pale and vapid in comparison.

Just now, however, all the girl’s strong sympathies were aroused and glowing; and as she tenderly cared for the child so strangely placed within her hands, and finally laid her to sleep in the clover-scented sheets of the fair white bed, she felt happier than she had for months before.

A light tap at the door, and Kitty entered.

“I’ll stay with her while you go and eat supper.  Charles said he’d come; but I’d like well enough to sit down a little while.  My!-she’s pretty-looking; isn’t she?”

“The prettiest child I ever saw,” replied Dora, with her usual decision; and then the two girls stood for a moment looking down at the delicate little face, where, since the food and broth Dora had administered, a bright color showed itself upon the cheeks and lips; while the short, thick curls, carefully brushed, clustered around the white forehead, defining its classic shape, and contrasting with its pearly tints.

“Who can she be?” asked Kitty in a whisper.

“Some sort of foreigner,—­French maybe, or perhaps Italian.  She has talked considerably since I gave her the broth; but I can’t make out a word she says.  She spoke English when I first met her; but I don’t believe she knows much of it,” said Dora thoughtfully.

“There is something sewed up in a little bag, and hung round her neck,” added she, “just such as some of our foreign volunteers had,—­a sort of charm, you know, to keep them from being struck by the evil eye.  That shows that her friends must have been foreigners.”

“Yes; and Catholics too, likely enough,” said Kitty rather contemptuously; adding, after a pause,—­

“Well, you go down, and I’ll sit by her a while.  If she sleeps as sound as this, I don’t suppose I need stay a great while.  There’s the supper-dishes to do.”