Her early experiences were not as peaceful as those which followed her tenth year.  The noise of battle, the cries of defeat, the shouts of victory, the sight of agonized faces, the vision of death, the struggles of pain and anguish, the sorrow of bereavement,—­she had seen all with those young eyes.  She had heard the whispered command in hushed moments of mortal danger, and the shout of triumph—­in the tumult of victory,—­had watched blazing ships, seen prisoners carried to their cells, attended the burial of brave men slain in battle, had marched with soldiers keeping time to funeral strains.  Her courage and her pity had been stirred in years when she could do no more than see and hear.  Once standing, through the heat of a bloody engagement, by the side of a lad, a corporal’s son, who was stationed to receive and communicate an order, a random shot struck the boy down at her side.  She saw that he was dead,—­waited for the order, transmitted it, and then carried away the lifeless body of her fellow-sentinel, staggering under the weighty burden, never resting till she had laid him in the shelter of his father’s quarters.  After the engagement, this story was told through the victorious ranks by the witnesses of her valor, and a medal was awarded the child by acclamation.  She always wore it, and was as proud of it as a veteran of his ribbons and stars.

But now, in times of peace, the fair flower of her womanhood was forming.  Like a white hyacinth she grew,—­a lady to look upon, with whom, for loveliness, not a lady of the fort could be compared.  Not one of them in courage or unselfishness exceeded her.

The family lived in a little house adjoining the barracks.  It was a home that could boast of nothing beyond comfort and cleanliness;—­the word comfort I use as the poor man understands it.  Neither Adolphus nor Pauline had any worldly goods to bring with them when they came to Foray.  They lived at first, and for a long time, in the barracks; the little house they now occupied had once been used for the storage of provisions; but when the war ended, Adolphus succeeded in obtaining permission to turn it into a dwelling-house.  Here the child was sheltered, and taught the use of a needle; and here she learned to read and write.

In the great vegetable garden which covered the space between the prison and the fort was a corner that reflected no great credit on the authorities.  The persons who might reasonably have been expected to take that neglected bit of ground under their loving care did no such thing.  The beds were weeded by Sandy, the gardener, and now and then a blossom rewarded that attention; but the flower-patch waited for Elizabeth.

The gardener knew very well how she prized the pretty flowers;—­they appealed to his own rude nature in a very tender way.  He loved to see the young girl flying down the narrow paths as swiftly as a bird, if she but spied a bloom from afar.  There was a tree whose branches hung over the wall, every one of them growing, with dreadful perversity, away from the cold, hard prison-ground which held the roots so fast.  Time was never long enough when she sat in the shade of those branches, watching Sandy at his work.