In a city where thousands and thousands of women were now organising relief work for the troops already in the field, Ailsa Paige had been among the earliest to respond to the call for a meeting at the Church of the Puritans.

Here she had left her name for enrolment with Mrs.Gerard Stuyvesant.
Later, with Mrs.Marquand, Mrs.Aspinwall, Mrs.Astor, and Mrs.
Hamilton Fish, and a hundred others, she had signed the call for the great mass-meeting; had acted on one of the subcommittees chosen from among the three thousand ladies gathered at the Institute; had served with Mrs.Schuyler on the board of the Central Relief Association; had been present at the inception of the Sanitary Commission and its adjunct, the Allotment Commission; had contributed to the Christian Commission, six thousand of whose delegates were destined to double the efficiency of the armies of the Union.
Then Sainte Ursula's Sisterhood, organised for field as well as hospital service, demanded all her energies.

It was to be an emergency corps; she had hesitated to answer the call, hesitated to enroll for this rougher service, and, troubled, had sought counsel from Mr.Dodge and Mr.Bronson of the Allotment Commission, and from Dr.Agnew of the Sanitary Commission.
Dr.Agnew wrote to Dr.Benton: "Mrs.Paige is a very charming and very sweet little lady, excellently equipped by experience to take the field with Sainte Ursula's Sisterhood, but self-distrustful and afraid of her own behaviour on a battle-field where the emergency corps might be under fire.

In _this_ sort of woman I have every confidence." The next day Ailsa enrolled; arranged her household affairs so that she could answer any summons at a few hours' notice; and went to bed dead tired, and slept badly, dreaming of dead men.

The morning sun found her pale and depressed.