Angel Agnes | Page 2

other, but sweeping them all into eternity on one wave as it were.
Then it was that a great wail of mortal distress rose from Shreveport--a call for help from one end of the land to another. Business came to a stand-still, the ordinary avocations of life were suspended. No work! no money! no bread! Nothing but sickness! nothing but horror! nothing but despair! nothing but death! Alas! was there no help in this supreme moment? There was plenty of money forthcoming, but no nurses. Philanthropic men and women in near and also distant States, sent their dollars even by telegraph. But who would go thither and peril his or her life for the good of the city in sackcloth and ashes?
Praised be the name of that God who gave them their brave hearts, there were some who nobly volunteered for the deadly but loving task. To go was almost certain death to themselves--yet did they go. And most brave, most distinguished, most lovely among those devoted few, was Agnes Arnold, the subject of this little memoir.
We have on our title page called her "Angel Agnes." That was what many a burning lip named her in the unfortunate city of Shreveport, as with her low, kind, tender voice, she spoke words of pious comfort to the passing soul, and whispered religious consolation in the fast deafening ears of the dying. Many had called her Angel, because their dimming eyes had not beheld a friend's face since they took sick, till they saw hers. Let us not fill space, though, with encomiums, but let this noble Christian creature's deeds be recorded to speak for themselves. So shall you, reader, do justice to the lovely martyr, whose form, together with that of her intended husband, sleeps in the eternal slumber far away in Louisiana.

AGNES VOLUNTEERS.
One day Mrs. Arnold, widow of the late well-known Samuel Arnold of this city, sat in the library of their elegant mansion up town, leading the daily papers.
It was shortly after breakfast, and presently Agnes, her adopted daughter, entered the room. The Arnolds had never had any children, save one, a girl, and she had died when she was three years old. While going to the funeral, Mrs. Arnold saw a poorly clad lady walking slowly along with a little girl so strikingly like her own dead child, that she was perfectly astonished,--so much so, indeed, that she called her husband's attention to the little one. Mr. Arnold himself was so surprised that he had the carriage stop, and, getting out, went and inquired the lady's name and address.
"For, madame," said he, as a reason for his doing such an apparently strange act, "your little daughter here is a perfect likeness of our own little Agnes, whose coffin you see in yonder hearse. You must allow Mrs. Arnold and me to call upon you, though we are perfect strangers to you; indeed you must."
"Very well, sir," answered the strange lady, "I shall not, certainly under the circumstances, object."
Immediately after the funeral the Arnolds called at the residence of Mrs. Morton, whose husband had died more than a year before. She was obliged to take in plain sewing, and when she could do so, she gave occasional lessons in French to eke out a livelihood for herself and child. A very short interview resulted in Mrs. Arnold persuading the widow to take a permanent situation with her, as her seamstress. And from that date until her death, which took place five years later, the fortunate widow and her child lived with the Arnolds as full members of the family.
With an exquisite and grateful regard for the sensibilities and possible wishes of her benefactors, the mother of the child voluntarily changed its name from Mary to Agnes.
"I know you will approve of my doing so," said she, on the occasion of her daughter's birthday--the Arnolds made quite a time of it, decking the new Agnes in all the trinkets which had once belonged to the little Agnes, who was gone--"I know you will approve of my doing so, and I cannot think of any better way in which to express my gratitude to you both."
Mr. and Mrs. Arnold were moved to tears by these words; in fact, so deep and genuine was their emotion that neither one spoke for some time. They did nothing but fondle and kiss the child they had adopted.
Thenceforward, instead of Mary Morton, the child was Agnes Arnold.
Years went by, and on the day we first introduced her she was twenty-two years old. Her own mother and Mr. Arnold had passed away and were laid away to sleep in the dust close by the little Agnes of old. But like the ivy and the flowers which grew over all their graves, each advancing year made stouter and