Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/327

 white a sacrifice before the awful demon of the pestilence that laid your fairest cities desolate? One such pure life—and there were many such given—should efface the memory of a Gettysburg and a Shiloh. A great grief fell upon those that were left when the youngest and frailest of them was taken. Now that they had lost her, it seemed to them that Virginia had been the strongest of the four; and Madame Anna, who till then had never lost her quiet cheerfulness, never smiled again. Each one asked himself or herself: "Which one of us next?" Philip had succeeded so wonderfully with his patients, turning out more convalescents than any other doctor, that they had all felt perfect faith in him and in his ability to save them and himself. From the outside world, which stood aghast at the tales of suffering and death which every day's bulletin told, came help, and, what was better, sympathy. It is not probable that those who penned the words of praise and of sympathy that found their way through mail and press and telegraph to the devoted city ever realized what cordial to the fainting souls these loving messages proved. Robert and Margaret, Sara Harden and many another loyal friend, in this way helped to keep up Philip's courage and strength, on which the great draughts drawn daily were beginning to