"Subsequently I heard Dr. Lynch, late Bishop of Charleston, narrate a very like experience.

"The only other occasion that I remember visiting a Sisters' hospital was before the siege of Vicksburg, at Jacksonville, Miss. The hospital was located in a large hotel, downtown. As I entered the door I found the hallway occupied for its length by two rows of sick soldiers stretched on the floor, each wrapped in his old worn blanket with his small bundle for a pillow. A tall, gaunt, poor fellow had just come in and was spreading his blanket, preparing to lie down. A Sister approached and asked him for his ticket. He made no answer, but having finished his preparations lay down and then proceeded to search for the paper. When found, after a long search, he handed it to the Sister, who, glancing at it, said:

"My good man, this is not for us. It is for the hospital in the Capital.'

""That mought be,' he answered, ‘and I reckon it is. But that don't matter anyhow. This is my hospital, and I'll stay here, wherever the ticket's for. Think I'm gwine t'anywhar but the Sisters'?'

"And so he was tolerated and adopted by the Sisters, for though inconvenient to the nuns it was consoling and encouraging to them when they foud their services so appreciated by their patients.

From Jacksonville I went to Port Gibson, and then to Vicksburg. There were not any Sisters at either place. After the fall of Vicksburg I went to Mobile, where 1 visited the Sisters' hospital, but was not on duty there or elsewhere up to my departure for Europe by the Steamer R. E. Lee, via Wilmington, N. C., and Halifax."

Many of the episodes of the war with which the Sisters were associated would in their intensity and uniqueness furnish the basis for stories and dramas more wonderful than anything yet written by the novelists or constructed by the playwrights. Here was frequently illustrated the poet's contention that truth is stranger than fiction. One instance containing all of the elements that go to make up a romance comes to mind. The two principal figures in it were a sweet Sister of Charity, burning with love for her fellow creatures, and willing to lay down life itself in the cause of suffering humanity, and a brave soldier, filled with patriotism for his country, brought to the point of death by a malignant fever; nursed back to life and finally, twenty-five years after the war, giving an exhibition of gratitude as rare as it is beautiful.

Thomas Trahey was born in Detroit, Mich., in 1844, and was the only son of devoted parents. When the war began he was about 17 years of age. Flushed with the vigor and energy of youth he desired to enlist at once. He did not succeed in carrying out his wish, however, until August, 1862, when he enlisted in Company H, Sixteenth Michigan Volunteer Infantry. When he was mustered out at the close of the war it was as sergeant of his command. He was commended many times by his superiors for gallantry in action. In the battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862, he was struck by the fragment of a shell and severely wounded in the left breast. He was left on the battlefield all night, but finally received attention at the hands of Dr. R. F. Weir, who was in charge of the hospital at Frederick City.

Trahey recovered from this and went to the front

again with his regiment. After the battle of Gettysburg he was taken with typhoid fever, which soon assumed a malignant form. Dr. Gray, of Philadelphia, who was in charge of Barracks H, in the United States General Hospital, at Frederick City, made a careful diagnosis of the case and said that Trahey, who was weakened from the effects of his previous wounds and suffering, could not possibly recover.

It was at this juncture that Sister Louise appeared upon the scene. She inquired if careful nursing would not save the man's life. The physician said that it was one chance in a thousand, but that if anything could prolong the soldier's existence it was the patient and persistent care and watchfulness of a Sister of Charity.

"Then," she exclaimed, "I will undertake the case." Sister Louise had been detailed from the Mother House at Emmitsburg, and, though young in years, had acquired considerable experience, which added to her marvelous devotedness to duty and self-forgetfulness had made her phenomenally successful in the hospitals and camps. She was born of French-Canadian parents in Toronto. She was a devout child, and early gave evidence of a desire to embrace the religious state. Consequently the whole of her early childhood was a preparation for the life she was to enter. At an early age she came to the United States and took the vows of Chastity, Poverty and Obedience, and became a daughter of St. Vincent.

At the time she was performing her labors at Frederick City she was only 19 years of age, and was, moreover, possessed of unusual beauty. Day and night she remained at the bedside of her patient, frequently depriv

ing herself of food and rest in order to minister to his slightest wish. Finally he recovered, only to have a relapse, which resulted in a severe case of smallpox. This did not dismay the devoted nurse. She renewed her energies. For three weeks after he became convalescent the Sister fed him with a spoon.

Just as the patient was pronounced out of danger the Sister was ordered away to another station, where her pious attentions were given to other cases as serious and as dangerous as the ordeal she had just gone through. Sergeant Trahey returned to the front from his hospital cot, and was wounded once again at White Oak Road, Va., on March 29, 1865. He recovered and soon after, at the termination of the war, returned to his home. For several years he was unable by reason of his weakened physical condition to perform any of the ordinary duties of life.

After he had recovered he determined to seek the whereabouts of the Sister in order to thank her for the self-sacrificing care she had taken of him during the most critical period of his life. As he expressed it at the time, he was "willing to travel from Maine to California merely to get a glimpse of her holy face."

Sergeant Trahey first wrote to the Mother House of the order, at Emmitsburg, Md., and received a reply that Sister Louise had been ordered to St. Louis soon after the war and had died there in 1867 of malignant typhoid fever, the same disease that had so nearly ended the life of the soldier. She expired at the Ninth and Madison Streets Hospital, St. Louis, and was buried in Calvary Cemetery, in that city. The grateful soldier had the grave