He had had
the consolation of reflecting that he made her perfectly proud and
happy every day of her life that was left. Before the autumn ended,
she died, on a forced march one day, when the air was glittering with
alkali, and the fierce sun seemed to wither the dismal plain like the
vengeance of heaven. Though Farnham was even then one of the richest
men in the army, so rigid are the rules imposed upon our service, by
the economy of an ignorant demagogy, that no transportation could be
had to supply this sick lady with the ordinary conveniences of life,
and she died in his arms, on the hot prairie, in the shade of an
overloaded baggage wagon. He mourned her with the passing grief one
gives to a comrade fallen on the field of honor. Often since he left
the army, he reproached himself for not have grieved for her more
deeply. "Poor Nellie," he would sometimes say, "how she would have
enjoyed this house, if she had lived to possess it." But he never had
that feeling of widowhood known to those whose lives have been torn
in two.
IV.
PROTECTOR AND PROTEGEE.
A few days later, Mr.
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