She had stayed in Frederick through the Rebel
inroad, and kept the star-spangled banner where it would be safe, to
unroll it as the last Rebel hoofs clattered off from the pavement of the
town.
Near by Lieutenant Abbott was an unhappy gentleman, occupying a small
chamber, and filling it with his troubles. When he gets well and plump,
I know he will forgive me, if I confess that I could not help smiling
in the midst of my sympathy for him. He had been a well-favored man,
he said, sweeping his hand in a semicircle, which implied that his
acute-angled countenance had once filled the goodly curve he described.
He was now a perfect Don Quixote to look upon. Weakness had made him
querulous, as it does all of us, and he piped his grievances to me in a
thin voice with that finish of detail which chronic invalidism alone can
command. He was starving,--he could not get what he wanted to eat. He
was in need of stimulants, and he held up a pitiful two-ounce phial
containing three thimblefuls of brandy,--his whole stock of that
encouraging article.
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