a happy time, sitting in the sunshine, with leaves pleasantly astir
all about them, doves cooing overhead, and flowers sweetly gossiping
together through the summer afternoon. Nelly wove her smooth, green
rushes, Tony pored over his pages, and both found something better
than fairy legends in the family histories of insects, birds, and
beasts. All manner of wonders appeared, and were explained to them,
till Nelly felt as if a new world had been given her, so full of
beauty, interest, and pleasure that she never could be tired of
studying it. Many of these things were not strange to Tony, because,
born among plants, he had grown up with them as if they were brothers
and sisters, and the sturdy, brown-faced boy had learned many lessons
which no poet or philosopher could have taught him, unless he had
become as childlike as himself, and studied from the same great book.

When the baskets were done, the marked pages all read, and the sun
began to draw his rosy curtains round him before smiling "Good night,"
Nelly ranged the green beds round the room, Tony put in the screens,
and the hospital was ready. The little nurse was so excited that she
could hardly eat her supper, and directly afterwards ran up to tell
Will how well she had succeeded with the first part of her enterprise.
Now brother Will was a brave young officer, who had fought stoutly and
done his duty like a man. But when lying weak and wounded at home, the
cheerful courage which had led him safely through many dangers seemed
to have deserted him, and he was often gloomy, sad, or fretful,
because he longed to be at his post again, and time passed very
slowly. This troubled his mother, and made Nelly wonder why he found
lying in a pleasant room so much harder than fighting battles or
making weary marches. Anything that interested and amused him was very
welcome, and when Nelly, climbing on the arm of his sofa, told her
plans, mishaps, and successes, he laughed out more heartily than he