radiant with grateful joy, and the words froze on her lips. She decided to walk a little way with her. But the task became all the harder.
At the corner she stopped abruptly and bade her good-bye:
"I must leave you now, Mrs. Cameron. I will call for you in the morning and help you secure the passes to enter the hospital."
The mother stroked the girl's hand and held it lingeringly.
"How good you are," she said, softly. "And you have not told me your name?"
Elsie hesitated and said:
"That's a little secret. They call me Sister Elsie, the Banjo Maid, in the hospitals. My father is a man of distinction. I should be annoyed if my full name were known. I'm Elsie Stoneman. My father is the leader of the House. I live with my aunt."
"Thank you," she whispered, pressing her hand.
Elsie watched the dark figure disappear in the crowd with a strange tumult of feeling.
The mention of her father had revived the suspicion that he was the mysterious power threatening the policy of the President and planning a reign of terror for the South. Next to the President, he was the most powerful man in Washington, and the unrelenting foe of Mr. Lincoln, although the leader of his party in Congress, which he ruled with a rod of iron. He was a man of fierce and terrible resentments. And yet, in his personal life, to those he knew he was generous and considerate.
