best way for a stranger to distinguish the streets he has been in from
others is to make a cross or other mark on the white shutters.

This corner-house is the one. Ring softly,--for the Lieutenant-Colonel
lies there with a dreadfully wounded arm, and two sons of the family, one
wounded like the Colonel, one fighting with death in the fog of a typhoid
fever, will start with fresh pangs at the least sound you can make. I
entered the house, but no cheerful smile met me. The sufferers were each
of them thought to be in a critical condition. The fourth bed, waiting
its tenant day after day, was still empty. Not a word from my Captain.

Then, foolish, fond body that I was, my heart sank within me. Had he
been taken ill on the road, perhaps been attacked with those formidable
symptoms which sometimes come on suddenly after wounds that seemed to be
doing well enough, and was his life ebbing away in some lonely cottage,
nay, in some cold barn or shed, or at the wayside, unknown, uncared for?
Somewhere between Philadelphia and Hagerstown, if not at the latter town,
he must be, at any rate. I must sweep the hundred and eighty miles
between these places as one would sweep a chamber where a precious pearl
had been dropped. I must have a companion in my search, partly to help
me look about, and partly because I was getting nervous and felt lonely.
Charley said he would go with me,--Charley, my Captain's beloved friend,
gentle, but full of spirit and liveliness, cultivated, social,
affectionate, a good talker, a most agreeable letter-writer, observing,
with large relish of life, and keen sense of humor. He was not well
enough to go, some of the timid ones said; but he answered by packing his
carpet-bag, and in an hour or two we were on the Pennsylvania Central
Railroad in full blast for Harrisburg.

I should have been a forlorn creature but for the presence of my