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LAURA
(Earnestly.)

Oh, it's all vague—only this, I won't be no stick or stone! [I want to be of some use.] I want to help , help , help every soul that needs it, great or small, rich or poor. I want to do every kind deed that comes in my path to do. I want to make somebody glad that I was born, every day that I live. I don't care what it is. [I would gladly go into a hospital and work for nothing, and glory in it, setting sick] Soldiers on their feet again! there's a noble work! Its next to being a Soldier! And just think! to have the gratitude of such men as that. O, a thousand times I've thought of Florence Nightingale, moving like a ministering angel among the wounded soldiers in Crimean Hospitals, and those grateful heroes, forgetting their sufferings, turning their poor bandaged heads to kiss her shadow as it drifted across their pillow!

EMILY

O, did they do that?

LAURA

Yes, and with tears in their eyes too, and when a man's gratitude comes in tears, it comes clear from the bottom of his heart!

(LAURA rises.)

EMILY

Laura, I believe you'd as soon be a soldier as not.

LAURA

To save my country with all my heart, I would! What did Joan of Arc do that I wouldn't do? Without her armor of proof! Without her consecrated banners! Without her all-protecting superstition! But just as I am.

(Straightening up and marching.)

I'd follow the drums into battle! And I'd rejoice in the fire and smoke and the thunder of the guns!

EMILY

You'd do it! I tell you, you look it.

LAURA

Do it? I'd do anything noble in a righteous cause.

(Enter UNCLE DANIEL.)