What Answer?

"A breathing sigh, a sigh for answer,
A little talking of outward things."

JEAN INGELOW

Ah, the weeks that followed! People ate and drank and slept, lived and loved and hated, were born and died,—the same world that it had been a little while before, yet not the same to them,—never to seem quite the same again. A little cloud had fallen between them and it, and changed to their eyes all its proportions and hues.

They were incessantly together, riding, or driving, or walking, looking at pictures, dancing at parties, listening to opera or play.

"It seems to me Will is going it at a pretty tremendous pace somewhere," said Mr. Surrey to his wife, one morning, after this had endured for a space. "It would be well to look into it, and to know something of this girl."

"You are right," she replied. "Yet I have such absolute faith in Willie's fine taste and sense that I feel no anxiety."

"Nor I; yet I shall investigate a bit to-night at Augusta's."

"Clara tells me that when Miss Ercildoune understood it was to be a great party, she insisted on ending her visit, or, at least, staying for a while with her aunt, but they would not hear of it."

"Mrs. Lancaster goes back to England soon?"

"Very soon."

"Does any one know aught of Miss Ercildoune's family save that Mrs. Lancaster is her aunt?"

"If 'any one' means me, I understand her father to be a gentleman of elegant leisure,—his home near Philadelphia; a widower, with one other child,—a son, I believe; that his wife was English, married abroad; that Mrs. Lancaster comes here with the best of letters, and, for herself, is most evidently a lady."

"Good. Now I shall take a survey of the young lady herself."

When night came, and with it a crowd to Mrs. Russell's rooms, the opportunity offered for the survey, and it was made scrutinizingly. Surrey was an only son, a well-beloved one, and what concerned him was investigated with utmost care.

Scrutinizingly and satisfactorily. They were dancing, his sunny head bent till it almost touched the silky blackness of her hair. "Saxon and Norman," said somebody near who was watching them; "what a delicious contrast!"

"They make an exquisite picture," thought the mother, as she looked with delight and dread: delight at the beauty; dread that fills the soul of any mother when she feels that she no longer holds her boy,—that his life has another keeper,—and queries, "What of the keeper?"

"Well?" she said, looking up at her husband.

"Well," he answered, with a tone that meant, well. "She's thorough-bred. Democratic or not, I will always insist, blood tells. Look at her: no one needs to ask who she is. I'd take her on trust without a word."

"So, then, you are not her critic, but her admirer."

"Ah, my dear, criticism is lost in admiration, and I am glad to find it so."

"And I. Willie saw with our eyes, as a boy; it is fortunate that we can see with his eyes, as a man."

So, without any words spoken, after that night, both Mr. and Mrs. Surrey took this young girl into their hearts as they hoped soon to take her into their lives, and called her "daughter" in their thought, as a pleasant preparation for the uttered word by and by.

Thus the weeks fled. No word had passed between these two to which the world might not have listened. Whatever language their hearts and their eyes spoke had not been interpreted by their lips. He had not yet touched her hand save as it met his, gloved or formal, or as it rested on his arm; and yet, as one walking through the dusk and stillness of a summer night feels a flower or falling leaf brush his check, and starts, shivering as from the touch of a disembodied soul, so this slight outward touch thrilled his inmost being; this hand, meeting his for an instant, shook his soul.

Indefinite and undefined,—there was no thought beyond the moment; no wish to take this young girl into his arms and to call her "wife" had shaped itself in his brain. It was enough for both that they were in one another's presence, that they breathed the same air, that they could see each other as they raised their eyes, and exchange a word, a look, a smile. Whatever storm of emotion the future might hold for them was not manifest in this sunny and delightful present.

Upon one subject alone did they disagree with feeling,—in other matters their very dissimilarity proving an added charm. This was a curious question to come between lovers. All his life Surrey had been a devotee of his country and its flag. While he was a boy Kossuth had come to these shores, and he yet remembered how he had cheered himself hoarse with pride and delight, as the eloquent voice and impassioned lips of the great Magyar sounded the praise of America, as the "refuge of the oppressed and the hope of the world." He yet remembered how when the hand, every gesture of which was instinct with power, was lifted to the flag,—the flag, stainless, spotless, without blemish or flaw; the flag which was "fair as the sun, clear as the moon," and to the oppressors of the earth "terrible as an army with banners,"—he yet remembered how, as this emblem of liberty was thus apostrophized and saluted, the tears had rushed to his boyish eyes, and his voice had said, for his heart, "Thank God, I am an American!"

One day he made some such remark to her. She answered, "I, too, am an American, but I do not thank God for it."

At another time he said, as some emigrants passed them in the street, "What a sense of pride it gives one in one's country, to see her so stretch out her arms to help and embrace the outcast and suffering of the whole world!"

She smiled—bitterly, he thought; and replied, "O just and magnanimous country, to feed and clothe the stranger from without, while she outrages and destroys her children within!"

"You do not love America," he said.

"I do not love America," she responded.

"And yet it is a wonderful country."

"Ay," briefly, almost satirically, "a wonderful country, indeed!"

"Still you stay here, live here."

"Yes, it is my country. Whatever I think of it, I will not be driven away from it; it is my right to remain."

"Her right to remain?" he thought; "what does she mean by that? she speaks as though conscience were involved in the thing. No matter; let us talk of something pleasanter."

One day she gave him a clew. They were looking at the picture of a great statesman,—a man as famous for the grandeur of face and form as for the power and splendor of his intellect.

"Unequalled! unapproachable!" exclaimed Surrey, at last.

"I have seen its equal," she answered, very quietly, yet with a shiver of excitement in the tones.

"When? where? how? I will take a journey to look at him. Who is he? where did he grow?"

For response she put her hand into the pocket of her gown, and took out a velvet case. What could there be in that little blue thing to cause such emotion? As Surrey saw it in her hand, he grew hot, then cold, then fiery hot again. In an instant by this chill, this heat, this pain, his heart was laid bare to his own inspection. In an instant he knew that his arms would be empty did they hold a universe in which Francesca Ercildoune had no part, and that with her head on his heart the world might lapse from him unheeded; and, with this knowledge, she held tenderly and caressingly, as he saw, another man's picture in her hand.

His own so shook that he could scarcely take the case from her, to open it; but, opened, his eyes devoured what was under them.

A half-length,—the face and physique superb. Of what color were the hair and eyes the neutral tints of the picture gave no hint; the brow princely, breaking the perfect oval of the face; eyes piercing and full; the features rounded, yet clearly cut; the mouth with a curious combination of sadness and disdain. The face was not young, yet it was so instinct with magnificent vitality that even the picture impressed one more powerfully than most living men, and one involuntarily exclaimed on beholding it, "This man can never grow old, and death must here forego its claim!"

Looking up from it with no admiration to express for the face, he saw Francesca's smiling on it with a sort of adoration, as she, reclaiming her property, said,—

"My father's old friends have a great deal of enjoyment, and amusement too, from his beauty. One of them was the other day telling me of the excessive admiration people had always shown, and laughingly insisted that when papa was a young man, and appeared in public, in London or Paris, it was between two police officers to keep off the admiring crowd; and," laughing a gay little laugh herself, "of course I believed him! why shouldn't I?"

He was looking at the picture again. "What an air of command he has!"

"Yes. I remember hearing that when Daniel Webster was in London, and walked unattended through the streets, the coal-heavers and workmen took off their hats and stood bareheaded till he had gone by, thinking it was royalty that passed. I think they would do the same for papa."

"If he looks like a king, I know somebody who looks like a princess," thought the happy young fellow, gazing down upon the proud, dainty figure by his side; but he smiled as he said, "What a little aristocrat you are, Miss Ercildoune! what a pity you were born a Yankee!"

"I am not a Yankee, Mr. Surrey," replied the little aristocrat, "if to be a Yankee is to be a native of America. I was born on the sea."

"And your mother, I know, was English."

"Yes, she was English."

"Is it rude to ask if your father was the same?

"No!" she answered emphatically, "my papa is a Virginian,—a Virginia gentleman,"—the last word spoken with an untransferable accent,—"there are few enough of them."

"So, so!" thought Willie, "here my riddle is read. Southern—Virginia—gentleman. No wonder she has no love to spend on country or flag; no wonder we couldn't agree. And yet it can't be that,—what were the first words I ever heard from her mouth?" and, remembering that terrible denunciation of the "peculiar institution" of Virginia and of the South, he found himself puzzled the more.

Just then there came into the picture-gallery, where they were wasting a pleasant morning, a young man to whom Surrey gave the slightest of recognitions,—well-dressed, booted, and gloved, yet lacking the nameless something which marks the gentleman. His glance, as it rested on Surrey, held no love, and, indeed, was rather malignant.

"That fellow," said Surrey, indicating him, "has a queer story connected with him. He was discharged from my father's employ to give place to a man who could do his work better; and the strange part of it"—he watched her with an amused smile to see what effect the announcement would have upon her Virginia ladyship—"is that number two is a black man."

A sudden heat flushed her cheeks: "Do you tell me your father made room for a black man in his employ, and at the expense of a white one?"

"It is even so."

"Is he there now?"

Surrey's beautiful Saxon face crimsoned. "No: he is not," he said reluctantly.

"Ah! did he, this black man,—did he not do his work well?"

"Admirably."

"Is it allowable, then, to ask why he was discarded?"

"It is allowable, surely. He was dismissed because the choice lay between him and seven hundred men."

"And you"—her face was very pale now, the flush all gone out of it—"you have nothing to do with your father's works, but you are his son,—did you do naught? protest, for instance?"

"I protested—and yielded. The contest would have been not merely with seven hundred men, but with every machinist in the city. Justice versus prejudice, and prejudice had it; as, indeed, I suppose it will for a good many generations to come: invincible it appears to be in the American mind."

"Invincible! is it so?" She paused over the words, scrutinizing him meanwhile with an unconscious intensity.

"And this black man,—what of him? He was flung out to starve and die; a proper fate, surely, for his presumption. Poor fool! how did he dare to think he could compete with his masters! You know nothing of him ?"

Surely he must be mistaken. What could this black man, or this matter, be to her? yet as he listened her voice sounded to his ear like that of one in mortal pain. What held him silent? Why did he not tell her, why did he not in some way make her comprehend, that he, delicate exclusive, and patrician, as the people of his set thought him, had gone to this man, had lifted him from his sorrow and despondency to courage and hope once more; had found him work; would see that the place he strove to fill in the world should be filled, could any help of his secure that end. Why did the modesty which was a part of him, and the high-bred reserve which shrank from letting his own mother know of the good deeds his life wrought, hold him silent now?

In that silence something fell between them. What was it? But a moment, yet in that little space it seemed to him as though continents divided them, and seas rolled between. "Francesca!" he cried, under his breath,—he had never before called her by her Christian name,—"Francesca!" and stretched out his hand towards her, as a drowning man stretches forth his hand to life.

"This room is stifling!" she said for answer; and her voice, dulled and unnatural, seemed to his strangely confused senses as though it came from a far distance,—"I am suffering: shall we go out to the air?"

"But more than loss about me clings."

JEAN INGELOW

"No! no, I am mad to think it! I must have been dreaming! what could there have been in that talk to have such an effect as I have conjured up? She pitied Franklin! yes, she pities every one whom she thinks suffering or wronged. Dear little tender heart! of course it was the room,—didn't she say she was ill? it must have been awful; the heat and the closeness got into my head,—that's it. Bad air is as bad as whiskey on a man's brain. What a fool I made of myself! not even answering her questions. What did she think of me? Well."

Surrey in despair pushed away the book over which he had been bending all the afternoon, seeing for every word Francesca, and on every page an image of her face. "I'll smoke myself into some sort of decent quiet, before I go up town, at least"; and taking his huge meerschaum, settling himself sedately, began his quieting operation with appalling energy. The soft rings, gray and delicate, taking curious and airy shapes, floated out and filled the room; but they were not soothing shapes, nor ministering spirits of comfort. They seemed filmy garments, and from their midst faces beautiful, yet faint and dim, looked at him, all of them like unto her face; but when he dropped his pipe and bent forward, the wreaths of smoke fell into lines that made the faces appear sad and bathed in tears, and the images faded from his sight.

As the last one, with its visionary arms outstretched towards him, receded from him, and disappeared, he thought, "That is Francesca's spirit, bidding me an eternal adieu"—and, with the foolish thought, in spite of its foolishness, he shivered and stretched out his arms in return.

"Of a verity," he then cried, "if nature failed to make me an idiot, I am doing my best to consummate that end, and become one of free choice. What folly possesses me? I will dissipate it at once,—I will see her in bodily shape,—that will put an end to such fancies,"—starting up, and beginning to pull on his gloves.

"No! no, that will not do,"—pulling them off again. "She will think I am an uneasy ghost that pursues her. I must wait till this evening, but ah, what an age till evening!"

Fortunately, all ages, even lovers' ages, have an end. The evening came; he was at the Fifth Avenue,—his card sent up,—his feet impatiently travelling to and fro upon the parlor carpet,—his heart beating with happiness and expectancy. A shadow darkened the door; he flew to meet the substance,—not a sweet face and graceful form, but a servant, big and commonplace, bringing him his own card and the announcement, "The ladies is both out, sir."

"Impossible! take it up again."

He said "impossible" because Francesca had that morning told him she would be at home in the evening.

"All right, sir; but it's no use, for there's nobody there, I know"; and he vanished for a second attempt, unsuccessful as the first. Surrey went to the office, still determinedly incredulous.

"Are Mrs. Lancaster and Miss Ercildoune not in?"

"No, sir; both out. Keys here,"—showing them. "Left for one of the five-o'clock trains; rooms not given up; said they would be back in a few days."

"From what depot did they leave?"

"Don't know, sir. They didn't go in the coach; had a carriage, or I could tell you."

"But they left a note, perhaps,—or some message?"

"Nothing at all, sir; not a word, nor a scrap. Can I serve you in any way further?"

"Thanks! not at all. Good evening."

"Good evening, sir."

That was all. What did it mean?—to vanish without a sign! an engagement for the evening, and not a line left in explanation or excuse! It was not like her. There must be something wrong, some mystery. He tormented himself with a thousand fancies and fears over what, he confessed, was probably a mere accident; wisely determined to do so no longer,—but did, spite of such excellent resolutions and intent.

This took place on the evening of Saturday, the 13th of April, 1861. The events of the next few days doubtless augmented his anxiety and unhappiness. Sunday followed,—a day filled not with a Sabbath calm, but with the stillness felt in nature before some awful convulsion; the silence preceding earthquake, volcano, or blasting storm; a quiet broken from Maine to the Pacific slope when the next day shone, and men roused themselves from the sleep of a night to the duty of a day, from the sleep of generations, fast merging into death, at the trumpet-call to arms,—a cry which sounded through every State and every household in the land, which, more powerful than the old songs of Percy and Douglas, "brought children from their play, and old men from their chimney-corners," to emulate humanity in its strength and prime, and contest with it the opportunity to fight and die in a deathless cause.

A cry which said, "There are wrongs to be redressed already long enough endured,—wrongs against the flag of the nation, against the integrity of the Union, against the life of the republic; wrongs against the cause of order, of law, of good government, against right, and justice, and liberty, against humanity and the world; not merely in the present, but in the great future, its countless ages and its generations yet unborn."

To this cry there sounded one universal response, as men dropped their work at loom, or forge, or wheel, in counting-room, bank, and merchant's store, in pulpit, office, or platform, and with one accord rushed to arms, to save these rights so frightfully and arrogantly assailed.

One voice that went to swell this chorus was Surrey's; one hand quick to grasp rifle and cartridge-box, one soul eager to fling its body into the breach at this majestic call, was his. He felt to the full all the divine frenzy and passion of those first days of the war, days unequalled in the history of nations and of the world. All the elegant dilettanteism, the delicious idleness, the luxurious ease, fell away, and were as though they had never been. All the airy dreams of a renewed chivalrous age, of courage, of heroism, of sublime daring and self-sacrifice, took substance and shape, and were for him no longer visions of the night, but realities of the day.

Still, while flags waved, drums beat, and cannon thundered; while friends said, "Go!" the world stood ready to cheer him on, and fame and honor and greater things than these beckoned him to come; while he felt the whirl and excitement of it all,—his heart cried ceaselessly, "Only let me see her—once—if but for a moment, before I go!" It was so little he asked of fate, yet too much to be granted.

In vain he went every day, and many times a day, in the brief space left him, to her hotel. In vain he once more questioned clerk and servants; in vain haunted the house of his aunt, with the dim hope that Clara might hear from her, or that in some undefined way he might learn of her whereabouts, and so accomplish his desire.

But the days passed, too slowly for the ardent young patriot, all too rapidly for the unhappy lover. Friday came. Early in the day multitudes of people began to collect in the street, growing in numbers and enthusiasm as the hours wore on, till, in the afternoon, the splendid thoroughfare of New York from Fourth Street down to the Cortlandt Ferry—a stretch of miles—was a solid mass of humanity; thousands and tens of thousands, doubled, quadrupled, and multiplied again.

Through the morning this crowd in squads and companies traversed the streets, collected on the corners, congregating chiefly about the armory of their pet regiment, the Seventh, on Lafayette Square,—one great mass gazing unweariedly at its windows and walls, then moving on to be replaced by another of the like kind, which, having gone through the same performance, gave way in turn to yet others, eager to take its place.

So the fever burned; the excitement continued and augmented till, towards three o'clock in the afternoon, the mighty throng stood still, and waited. It was no ordinary multitude; the wealth, refinement, fashion, the greatness and goodness of a vast city were there, pressed close against its coarser and darker and homelier elements. Men and women stood alike in the crowd, dainty patrician and toil-stained laborer, all thrilled by a common emotion, all vivified—if in unequal degree—by the same sublime enthusiasm. Overhead, from every window and doorway and housetop, in every space and spot that could sustain one, on ropes, on staffs, in human hands, waved, and curled, and floated, flags that were in multitude like the swells of the sea; silk, and bunting, and painted calico, from the great banner spreading its folds with an indescribable majesty, to the tiny toy shaken in a baby hand. Under all this glad and gay and splendid show, the faces seemed, perhaps by contrast, not sad, but grave; not sorrowful, but intense, and luminously solemn.

Gradually the men of the Seventh marched out of their armory. Hands had been wrung, adieus said, last fond embraces and farewells given. The regiment formed in the open square, the crowd about it so dense as to seem stifling, the windows of its building rilled with the sweetest and finest and fairest of faces,—the mothers, wives, and sweethearts of these young splendid fellows just ready to march away.

Surrey from his station gazed and gazed at the window where stood his mother, so well beloved, his relations and friends, many of them near and dear to him,—some of them with clear, bright eyes that turned from the forms of brothers in the ranks to seek his, and linger upon it wistfully and tenderly; yet looking at all these, even his mother, he looked beyond, as though in the empty space a face would appear, eyes would meet his, arms be stretched towards him, lips whisper a fond adieu, as he, breaking from the ranks, would take her to his embrace, and speak, at the same time, his love and farewell. A fruitless longing.

Four o'clock struck over the great city, and the line moved out of the square, through Fourth Street, to Broadway. Then began a march, which whoso witnessed, though but a little child, will remember to his dying day, the story of which he will repeat to his children, and his children's children, and, these dead, it will be read by eyes that shall shine centuries hence, as one of the most memorable scenes in the great struggle for freedom.

Hands were stretched forth to touch the cloth of their uniforms, and kissed when they were drawn back. Mothers held up their little children to gain inspiration for a lifetime. A roar of voices, continuous, unbroken, rent the skies; while, through the deafening cheers, men and women, with eyes blinded by tears, repeated, a million times, "God bless—God bless and keep them!" And so, down the magnificent avenue, through the countless, shouting multitude, through the whirlwind of enthusiasm and adoration, under the glorious sweep of flags, the grand regiment moved from the beginning of its march to its close,—till it was swept away towards the capital, around which were soon to roll such bloody waves of death.

Meanwhile, where was Miss Ercildoune? Surrey had thought her behavior strange the last morning they spent together. How much stranger, how unaccountable, indeed, would it have seemed to him, could he have seen her through the afternoon following!

"What is wrong with you? are you ill, Francesca?" her aunt had inquired as she came in, pulling off her hat with the air of one stifling, and throwing herself into a chair.

"Ill! O no!"—with a quick laugh,—"what could have made you think so? I am quite well, thank you; but I will go to my room for a little while and rest. I think I am tired."

"Do, dear, for I want you to take a trip up the Hudson this afternoon. I have to see some English people who are living at a little village a score of miles out of town, and then I must go on to Albany before I take you home. It will be pleasant at Tanglewood over the Sabbath,—unless you have some engagements to keep you here?"

"O Aunt Alice, how glad I am! I was going home this afternoon without you. I thought you would come when you were ready; but this will do just as well,—anything to get out of town."

"Anything to get out of town? why, Francesca, is it so hateful to you? 'Going home! and this do almost as well!'—what does the child mean? is she the least little bit mad? I'm afraid so. She evidently needs some fresh country air, and rest from excitement. Go, dear, and take your nap, and refresh yourself before five o'clock; that is the time we leave."

As the door closed between them, she shook her head dubiously. '"Going home this afternoon!' what does that signify? Has she been quarrelling with that young lover of hers, or refusing him? I should not care to ask any questions till she herself speaks; but I fear me something is wrong."

She would not have feared, but been certain, could she have looked then and there into the next room. She would have seen that the trouble was something deeper than she dreamed. Francesca was sitting, her hands supporting an aching head, her large eyes fixed mournfully and immovably upon something which she seemed to contemplate with a relentless earnestness, as though forcing herself to a distressing task. What was this something? An image, a shadow in the air, which she had not evoked from the empty atmosphere, but from the depths of her own nature and soul,—the life and fate of a young girl. Herself! what cause, then, for mournful scrutiny? She, so young, so brilliant, so beautiful, upon whom fate had so kindly smiled, admired by many, tenderly and passionately loved by at least one heart,—surely it was a delightful picture to contemplate,—this life and its future; a picture to bring smiles to the lips, rather than tears to the eyes.

Though, in fact, there were none dimming hers,—hot, dry eyes, full of fever and pain. What visions passed before them? what shadows of the life she inspected darkened them? what sunshine now and then fell upon it, reflecting itself in them, as she leaned forward to scan these bright spots, holding them in her gaze after other and gloomier ones had taken their places, as one leans forth from window or doorway to behold, long as possible, the vanishing form of some dear friend.

Looking at these, she cried out, "Fool! to have been so happy, and not to have known what the happiness meant, and that it was not for me,—never for me! to have walked to the verge of an abyss,—to have plunged in, thinking the path led to heaven. Heaven for me! ah,—I forgot,—I forgot. I let an unconscious bliss seize me, possess me, exclude memory and thought,—lived in it as though it would endure forever."

She got up and moved restlessly to and fro across the room, but presently came back to the seat she had abandoned, and to the inspection which, while it tortured her, she yet evidently compelled herself to pursue.

"Come," she then said, "let us ask ourself some questions, constitute ourself confessor and penitent, and see what the result will prove."

"Did you think fate would be more merciful to you than to others?"

"No, I thought nothing about fate."

"Did you suppose that he loved you sufficiently to destroy 'an invincible barrier?'"

"I did not think of his love. I remembered no barrier. I only knew I was in heaven, and cared for naught beyond."

"Do you see the barrier now?"

"I do—I do."

"Did he help you to behold it; to discover, or to remember it? did he, or did he not?"

"He did. Too true,—he did."

"Does he love you?"

"I—how should I know? his looks, his acts—I never thought—O Willie, Willie!"—her voice going out in a little gasping sob.

"Come,—none of that. No sentiment,—face the facts. Think over all that was said, every word. Have you done so?"

"I have,—every word."

"Well?"

"Ah, stop torturing me. Do not ask me any more questions. I am going away,—flying like a coward. I will not tempt further suffering. And yet—once more—only once? could that do harm? Ah, God, my God, be merciful!" she cried, clasping her hands and lifting them above her bowed head. Then remembering, in the midst of her anguish, some words she had been reading that morning, she repeated them with a bitter emphasis,—"What can wringing of the hands do, that which is ordained to alter?" As she did so she tore asunder her clasped hands, to drop them clinched by her side,—the gesture of despair substituted for that of hope.

"It is not Heaven I am to besiege!" she exclaimed. "Will I never learn that? Its justice cannot overcome the injustice of man. My God!" she cried then, with a sudden, terrible energy, "our punishment should be light, our rest sure, our paradise safe, at the end, since we have to make now such awful atonement; since men compel us to endure the pangs of purgatory, the tortures of hell, here upon earth."

After that she sat for a long while silent, evidently revolving a thousand thoughts of every shape and hue, judging from the myriads of lights and shadows that flitted over her face. At last, rousing herself, she perceived that she had no more time to spend in this sorrowful employment,—that she must prepare to go away from him, as her heart said, forever. "Forever!" it repeated. "This, then, is the close of it all,—the miserable end!" With that thought she shut her slender hand, and struck it down hard, the blood almost starting from the driven nails and bruised flesh, unheeding; though a little space thereafter she smiled, beholding it, and muttered, "So—the drop of savage blood is telling at last!"

Presently she was gone. It was a pleasant spot to which her aunt took her,—one of the pretty little villages scattered up and down the long sweep of the Hudson. Pleasant people they were too,—these English friends of Mrs. Lancaster,—who made her welcome, but did not intrude upon the solitude which they saw she desired.

Sabbath morning they all went to the little chapel, and left her, as she wished, alone. Being so alone, after hearing their adieus, she went up to her room and sat down to devote herself once again to sorrowful contemplation,—not because she would, but because she must.

Poor girl! the bright spring sunshine streamed over her where she sat;—not a cloud in the sky, not a dimming of mist or vapor on all the hills, and the broad river-sweep which, placid and beautiful, rolled along; the cattle far off on the brown fields rubbed their silky sides softly together, and gazed through the clear atmosphere with a lazy content, as though they saw the waving of green grass, and heard the rustle of wind in the thick boughs, so soon to bear their leafy burden. Stillness everywhere,—the blessed calm that even nature seems to feel on a sunny Sabbath morn. Stillness scarcely broken by the voices, mellowed and softened ere they reached her ear, chanting in the village church, to some sweet and solemn music, words spoken in infinite tenderness long ago, and which, through all the centuries, come with healing balm to many a sore and saddened heart: "Come unto me," the voices sang,—"come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

"Ah, rest," she murmured while she listened,—"rest"; and with the repetition of the word the fever died out of her eyes, leaving them filled with such a look, more pitiful than any tears, as would have made a kind heart ache even to look at them; while her figure, alert and proud no longer, bent on the window ledge in such lonely and weary fashion that a strong arm would have involuntarily stretched out to shield it from any hardness or blow that might threaten, though the owner thereof were a stranger.

There was something indescribably appealing and pathetic in her whole look and air. Outside the window stood a slender little bird which had fluttered there, spent and worn, and did not try to flit away any further. Too early had it flown from its southern abode; too early abandoned the warm airs, the flowers and leafage, of a more hospitable region, to find its way to a northern home; too early ventured into a rigorous clime; and now, shivering, faint, near to death, drooped its wings and hung its weary head, waiting for the end of its brief life to come.

Francesca, looking up with woeful eyes, beheld it, and, opening the window, softly took it in. "Poor birdie!" she whispered, striving to warm it in her gentle hand and against her delicate cheek,—"poor little wanderer!—didst thou think to find thy mate, and build thy tiny nest, and be a happy mother through the long bright summer-time? Ah, my pet, what a sad close is this to all these pleasant dreams!"

The frail little creature could not eat even the bits of crumbs which she put into its mouth, nor taste a drop of water. All her soothing presses failed to bring warmth and life to the tiny frame that presently stretched itself out, dead,—all its sweet songs sung, its brief, bright existence ended forever. "Ah, my little birdie, it is all over," whispered Francesca, as she laid it softly down, and unconsciously lifted her hand to her own head with a self-pitying gesture that was sorrowful to behold.

"Like me," she did not say; yet a penetrating eye looking at them—the slight bird lying dead, its brilliant plumage already dimmed, the young girl gazing at it—would perceive that alike these two were fitted for the warmth and sunshine, would perceive that both had been thwarted and defrauded of their fair inheritance, would perceive that one lay spent and dead in its early spring. What of the other?

"Aunt Alice," said Francesca a few days after that, "can you go to New York this afternoon or to-morrow morning?"

"Certainly, dear. I purposed returning to-day or early in the morning to see the Seventh march away. Of course you would like to be there."

"Yes." She spoke slowly, and with seeming indifference. It was because she could scarcely control her voice to speak at all. "I should like to be there."

Francesca knew, what her aunt did not, that Surrey was a member of the Seventh, and that he would march away with it to danger,—perhaps to death.

So they were there, in a window overlooking the great avenue,—Mrs. Lancaster, foreigner though she was, thrilled to the heart's core by the magnificent pageant; Francesca straining her eyes up the long street, through the vast sea of faces, to fasten them upon just one face that she knew would presently appear in the throng.

"Ah, heavens!" cried Mrs. Lancaster, "what a sight! look at those young men; they are the choice and fine of the city. See, see! there is Hunter, and Winthrop, and Pursuivant, and Mortimer, and Shaw, and Russell, and, yes—no—it is, over there—your friend, Surrey, himself. Did you know, Francesca?"

Francesca did not reply. Mrs. Lancaster turned to see her lying white and cold in her chair. Endurance had failed at last.

"The plain, unvarnished tale of my whole course of love."

SHAKESPEARE

"What a handsome girl that is who always waits on us!" Francesca had once said to Clara Russell, as they came out of Hyacinth's with some dainty laces in their hands.

"Very," Clara had answered.

The handsome girl was Sallie.

At another time Francesca, admiring some particular specimen of the pomps and vanities with which the store was crowded, was about carrying it away, but first experimented as to its fit.

"O dear!" she cried, in dismay, "it is too short, and"—rummaging through the box—"there is not another like it, and it is the only one I want."

"How provoking!" sympathized Clara.

"I could very easily alter that," said Sallie, who was behind the counter; "I make these up for the shop, and I'll be glad to fix this for you, if you like it so much."

"Thanks. You are very kind. Can you send it up to-morrow?"

"This evening, if you wish it."

"Very good; I shall be your debtor."

"Well!" exclaimed Clara, as they turned away, this is the first time in all my shopping I ever found a girl ready to put herself out to serve one. They usually act as if they were conferring the most overwhelming favor by condescending to wait upon you at all."

"Why, Clara, I'm sure I always find them civil."

"I know they seem devoted to you. I wonder why. Oh!"—laughing and looking at her friend with honest admiration,—"it must be because you are so pretty."

"Excellent,—how discerning you are!" smiled Francesca, in return.

If Clara had had a little more discernment, she would have discovered that what wrought this miracle was a friendly courtesy, that never failed to either equal or subordinate.

Six weeks after the Seventh had marched out of New York, Francesca, sitting in her aunt's room, was roused from evidently painful thought by the entrance of a servant, who announced, "If you please, a young woman to see you."

"Name?"

"She gave none, miss."

"Send her up."

Sallie came in. "Bird of Paradise" Francesca had called her more than once, she was so dashing and handsome; but the title would scarcely fit now, for she looked poor, and sad, and woefully dispirited.

"Ah, Miss Sallie, is it you? Good morning."

"Good morning, Miss Ercildoune." She stood, and looked as though she had something important to say. Presently Francesca had drawn it from her,—a little story of her own sorrows and troubles.

"The reason I have come to you, Miss Ercildoune, when you are so nearly a stranger, is because you have always been so kind and pleasant to me when I waited on you at the store, and I thought you'd anyway listen to what I have to say."

"Speak on, Sallie."

"I've been at Hyacinth's now, over four years, ever since I left school. It's a good place, and they paid me well, but I had to keep two people out of it, my little brother Frank and myself; Frank and I are orphans. And I'm very fond of dress; I may as well confess that at once. So the consequence is, I haven't saved a cent against a rainy day. Well," blushing scarlet, "I had a lover,—the best heart that ever beat,—but I liked to flirt, and plague him a little, and make him jealous; and at last he got dreadfully so about a young gentleman,—a Mr. Snipe, who was very attentive to me,—and talked to me about it in a way I didn't like. That made me worse. I don't know what possessed me; but after that I went out with Mr. Snipe a great deal more, to the theatre and the like, and let him spend his money on me, and get things for me, as freely as he chose. I didn't mean any harm, indeed I didn't,—but I liked to go about and have a good time; and then it made Jim show how much he cared for me, which, you see, was a great thing to me; and so this went on for a while, till Jim gave me a real lecture, and I got angry and wouldn't listen to anything he had to say, and sent him away in a huff"—here she choked—"to fight; to the war; and O dear! O dear!" breaking down utterly, and hiding her face in her shawl, "he'll be killed,—I know he will; and oh! what shall I do? My heart will break, I am sure."

Francesca came and stood by her side, put her hand gently on her shoulder, and stroked her beautiful hair. "Poor girl!" she said, softly, "poor girl!" and then, so low that even Sallie could not hear, "You suffer, too: do we all suffer, then?"

Presently Sallie looked up, and continued: "Up to that time, Mr. Snipe hadn't said anything to me, except that he admired me very much, and that I was pretty, too pretty to work so hard, and that I ought to live like a lady, and a good deal more of that kind of talk that I was silly enough to listen to; but when he found Jim was gone, first, he made fun of him for 'being such a great fool as to go and be shot at for nothing,' and then he—O Miss Ercildoune, I can't tell you what he said; it makes me choke just to think of it. How dared he? what had I done that he should believe me such a thing as that? I don't know what words I used when I did find them, and I don't care, but they must have stung. I can't tell you how he looked, but it was dreadful; and he said, 'I'll bring down that proud spirit of yours yet, my lady. I'm not through with you,—don't think it,—not by a good deal'; and then he made me a fine bow, and laughed, and went out of the room.

"The next day Mr. Dodd—that's one of our firm—gave me a week's notice to quit: 'work was slack,' he said, 'and they didn't want so many girls.' But I'm just as sure as sure can be that Mr. Snipe's at the bottom of it, for I've been at the store, as I told you, four years and more, and they always reckoned me one of their best hands, and Mr. Dodd and Mr. Snipe are great friends. Since then I've done nothing but try to get work. I must have been into a thousand stores, but it's true work is slack; there's not a thing been doing since the war commenced, and I can't get any place. I've been to Miss Russell and some of the ladies who used to come to the store, to see if they'd give me some fine sewing; but they hadn't any for me, and I don't know what in the world to do, for I understand nothing very well but to sew, and to stand in a store. I've spent all my money, what little I had, and—and—I've even sold some of my clothes, and I can't go on this way much longer. I haven't a relative in the world; nor a home, except in a boarding-house; and the girls I know all treat me cool, as though I had done something bad, because I've lost my place, I suppose, and am poor.

"All along, at times, Mr. Snipe has been sending me things,—bouquets, and baskets of fruit, and sometimes a note, and, though I won't speak to him when I meet him on the street, he always smiles and bows as if he were intimate; and last night, when I was coming home, tired enough from my long search, he passed me and said, with such a look, 'You've gone down a peg or two, haven't you, Sallie? Come, I guess we'll be friends again before long.' You think it's queer I'm telling you all this. I can't help it; there's something about you that draws it all out of me. I came to ask you for work, and here I've been talking all this while about myself. You must excuse me; I don't think I would have said so much, if you hadn't looked so kind and so interested"; and so she had,—kind as kind could be, and interested as though the girl who talked had been her own sister.

"I am glad you came, Sallie, and glad that you told me all this, if it has been any relief to you. You may be sure I will do what I can for you, but I am afraid that will not be a great deal, here; for I am a stranger in New York, and know very few people. Perhaps—Would you go away from here?"

"Would I?—O wouldn't I? and be glad of the chance. I'd give anything to go where I couldn't get sight or sound of that horrid Snipe. Can't I go with you, Miss Ercildoune?"

"I have no counter behind which to station you," said Francesca, smiling.

"No, I know,—of course; but"—looking at the daintily arrayed figure—"you have plenty of elegant things to make, and I can do pretty much anything with my needle, if you'd like to trust me with some work. And then—I'm ashamed to ask so much of you, but a few words from you to your friends, I'm sure, would send me all that I could do, and more."

"You think so?" Miss Ercildoune inquired, with a curious intonation to her voice, and the strangest expression darkening her face. "Very well, it shall be tried."

Sallie was nonplussed by the tone and look, but she comprehended the closing words fully and with delight. "You will take me with you," she cried. "O, how good, how kind you are! how shall I ever be able to thank you?"

"Don't thank me at all," said Miss Ercildoune, "at least not now. Wait till I have done something to deserve your gratitude."

But Sallie was not to be silenced in any such fashion, and said her say with warmth and meaning; then, after some further talk about time and plans, went away carrying a bit of work which Miss Ercildoune had found, or made, for her, and for which she had paid in advance.

"God bless her!" thought Sallie; "how nice and how thoughtful she is! Most ladies, if they'd done anything for me, would have given me some money and made a beggar of me, and I should have felt as mean as dish-water. But now"—she patted her little bundle and walked down the street, elated and happy.

Francesca watched her out of the door with eyes that presently filled with tears. "Poor girl!" she whispered; "poor Sallie! her lover has gone to the wars with a shadow between them. Ah, that must not be; I must try to bring them together again, if he loves her dearly and truly. He might die,"—she shuddered at that,—"die, as other men die, in the heat and flame of battle. My God! my God! how shall I bear it? Dead! and without a word! Gone, and he will never know how well I love him! O Willie, Willie! my life, my love, my darling, come back, come back to me."

Vain cry!—he cannot hear. Vain lifting of an agonized face, beautiful in its agony!—he cannot see. Vain stretching forth of longing hands and empty arms!—he is not there to take them to his embrace. Carry thy burden as others have carried it before thee, and learn what multitudes, in times past and in time present, have learned,—the lesson of endurance when happiness is denied, and of patience and silence when joy has been withheld. Go thou thy way, sorrowful and suffering soul, alone; and if thy own heart bleeds, strive thou to soothe its pangs, by medicining the wounds and healing the hurts of another.

A few days thereafter, when Miss Ercildoune went over to Philadelphia, Sallie and Frank bore her company. She had become as thoroughly interested in them as though she had known and cared for them for a long while; and as she was one who was incapable of doing in an imperfect or partial way aught she attempted, and whose friendship never stopped short with pleasant sounding words, this interest had already bloomed beautifully, and was fast ripening into solid fruit.

She had written in advance to desire that certain preparations should be made for her protégés,—preparations which had been faithfully attended to; and thus, reaching a strange city, they felt themselves not strangers, since they had a home ready to receive them, and this excellent friend by their side.

The home consisted of two rooms, neat, cheerful, high up,—"the airier and healthier for that," as Sallie decided when she saw them.

"I believe everything is in order," said the good-natured-looking old lady, the mistress of the establishment. "My lodgers are all gentlemen who take their meals out, and I shall be glad of some company. Any one whom Friend Comstock recommends will be all right, I know."

As Mrs. Healey's style of designation indicated, Friend Comstock was a Quakeress, well known, greatly esteemed, an old friend of Miss Ercildoune, and of Miss Ercildoune's father. She it was to whom Francesca had written, and who had found this domicile for the wanderers, and who at the outset furnished Sallie with an abundance of fine and dainty sewing. Indeed, without giving the matter special thought, she was surprised to discover that, with one or two exceptions, the people Miss Ercildoune sent her were of the peaceful and quiet sect. This bird of brilliant plumage seemed ill assorted with the sober-hued flock.

She found in this same bird a helper in more ways than one. It was not alone that she gave her employment and paid her well, nor that she sent her others able and willing to do the same. She found Frankie a good school, and saw him properly installed. She never came to them empty-handed; through the long, hot summer-time she brought them fruit and flowers from her home out of town; and when she came not herself, if the carriage was in the city it stopped with these same delightful burdens. Sallie declared her an angel, and Frank, with his mouth stuffed full, stood ready to echo the assertion.

So the heated term wore away,—before it ended, telling heavily on Sallie. Her anxiety about Jim, her close confinement and constant work, the fever everywhere in the spiritual air through that first terrible summer of the war, bore her down.

"You need rest," said Miss Ercildoune to her one day, looking at her with kindly solicitude,—"rest, and change, and fresh air, and freedom from care. I can't give you the last, but I can the first if you will accept them. You need some country living."

"O Miss Ercildoune, will you let me do your work at your own home? I know it would do me good just to be under the same roof with you, and then I should have all the things you speak of combined and another one added. If you only will!"

This was not the plan Francesca had proposed to herself. She had intended sending Sallie away to some pleasant country or seaside place, till she was refreshed and ready to come to her work once more. Sallie did not know what to make of the expression of the face that watched her, nor of the exclamation, "Why not? let me try her." But she had not long to consider, for Miss Ercildoune added, "Be it so. I will send in for you to-morrow, and you shall stay till you are better and stronger, or—till you please to come home,"—the last words spoken in a bitter and sorrowful tone.

The next day Sallie found her way to the superb home of her employer. Superb it was, in every sense. Never before had she been in such a delightful region, never before realized how absolutely perfect breeding sets at ease all who come within the charm of its magic sphere,—employed, acquaintance, or friend.

There was a shadow, however, in this house,—a shadow, the premonition of which she had seen more than once on the face of its mistress ere she ever beheld her home; a shadow to which, for a few days, she had no clew, but which was suddenly explained by the arrival of the master of this beautiful habitation; a shadow from which most people would have fled as from the breath of a pestilence, or the shade of the tomb; nay, one from which, but a few short months before, Sallie herself would have sped with feet from which she would have shaken the very dust of the threshold when she was beyond its doors,—but not now. Now, as she beheld it, she sat still to survey it, with surprise that deepened into indignation and compassion, that many a time filled her eyes with tears, and brought an added expression of respect to her voice when she spoke to these people who seemed to have all the good things that this world can offer, upon whom fortune had expended her treasures, yet—

Whatever it was, Sallie came from that home with many an old senseless prejudice destroyed forever, with a new thought implanted in her soul, the blossoming of which was a noxious vapor in the nostrils of some who were compelled to inhale it, but as a sweet-smelling savor to more than one weary wayfarer, and to that God to whom the darkness and the light are alike, and who, we are told by His own word, is no respecter of persons.

"Poor, dear Miss Ercildoune!" half sobbed, half scolded Sallie, as she sat at her work, blooming and, fresh, the day after her return. "What a tangled thread it is, to be sure," jerking at her knotty needleful. "Well, I know what I'll do,—I'll treat her as if she was a queen born and crowned, just so long as I have anything to do with her,—so I will." And she did.

"For hearts of truest mettle
Absence doth join, and time doth settle."

ANONYMOUS

It were a vain endeavor to attempt the telling of what filled the heart and soul of Surrey, as he marched away that day from New York, and through the days and weeks and months that followed. Fired by a sublime enthusiasm for his country; thirsting to drink of any cup her hand might present, that thus he might display his absolute devotion to her cause; burning with indignation at the wrongs she had suffered; thrilled with an adoring love for the idea she embodied; eager to make manifest this love at whatever cost of pain and sorrow and suffering to himself,—through all this the man never once was steeped in forgetfulness in the soldier; the divine passion of patriotism never once dulled the ache, or satisfied the desire, or answered the prayer, or filled the longing heart, that through the day marches and the night watches cried, and would not be appeased, for his darling.

"Surely," he thought as he went down Broadway, as he reflected, as he considered the matter a thousand times thereafter,—"surely I was a fool not to have spoken to her then; not to have seen her, have devised, have forced some way to reach her, not to have met her face to face, and told her all the love with which she had filled my heart and possessed my soul. And then to have been such a coward when I did write to her, to have so said a say which was nothing"; and he groaned impatiently as he thought of the scene in his room and the letter which was its final result.

How he had written once, and again, and yet again, letters short and long, letters short and burning, or lengthy and filled almost to the final line with delicate fancies and airy sentiment, ere he ventured to tell that of which all this was but the prelude; how, at the conclusion of each attempt, he had watched these luminous effusions blaze and burn as he regularly committed them to the flames; how he found it difficult to decide which he enjoyed the most,—writing them out, or seeing them burn; how at last he had put upon paper some such words as these:—

"After these delightful weeks and months of intercourse, I am to go away from you, then, without a single word of parting, or a solitary sentence of adieu. Need I tell you how this pains me? I have in vain besieged the house that has held you; in vain made a thousand inquiries, a thousand efforts to discover your retreat and to reach your side, that I might once more see your face and take your hand ere I went from the sight and touch of both, perchance forever. This I find may not be. The hour strikes, and in a little space I shall march away from the city to which my heart clings with infinite fondness, since it is filled with associations of you. I have again and again striven to write that which will be worthy the eyes that are to read, and striven in vain. 'Tis a fine art to which I do not pretend. Then, in homely phrase, good by. Give me thy spiritual hand, and keep me, if thou wilt, in thy gentle remembrance. Adieu! a kind adieu, my friend; may the brighter stars smile on thee, and the better angels guard thy footsteps wherever thou mayst wander, keep thy heart and spirit bright, and let thy thoughts turn kindly back to me, I pray very, very often. And so, once more, farewell."

Remembering all this, thinking what he would do and say were the doing and saying yet possible in an untried future, the time sped by. He waited and waited in vain. He looked, yet was gratified by no sight for which his eyes longed. He hoped, till hope gave place to despondency and almost despair: not a word came to him, not a line of answer or remembrance. This long silence was all the more intolerable, since the time that intervened did but the more vividly stamp upon his memory the delights of the past, and color with softer and more exquisite tints the recollection of vanished hours,—hours spent in galloping gayly by her side in the early morning, or idly and deliciously lounged away in picture-galleries or concert-rooms, or in a conversation carried on in some curious and subtle shape between two hearts and spirits with the help of very few uttered words; hours in which he had whirled her through many a fairy maze and turn of captivating dance-music, or in some less heated and crowded room, or cool conservatory, listened to the voice of the siren who walked by his side, "while the sweet wind did gently kiss the flowers and make no noise," and the strains of "flute, violin, bassoon," and the sounds of the "dancers dancing in tune," coming to them on the still air of night, seemed like the sounds from another and a far-off world,—listened, listened, listened, while his silver-tongued enchantress builded castles in the air, or beguiled his thought, enthralled his heart, his soul and fancy, through many a golden hour.

Thinking of all this, his heart well found expression for its feelings in the half-pleasing, half-sorrowful lines which almost unconsciously repeated themselves again and again in his brain:—

"Still o'er those scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care;
Time but the impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear."

Thinking of all this, he took comfort in spite of his trouble. "Perhaps," he said to himself, "he was mistaken. Perhaps"—O happy thought!—it was but make-believe displeasure which had so tortured him. Perhaps—yes, he would believe it—she had never received his letter; they had been careless, they had failed to give it her or to send it aright. He would write her once again, in language which would relieve his heart, and which she must comprehend. He loved her; perhaps, ah, perhaps she loved him a little in return: he would believe so till he was undeceived, and be infinitely happy in the belief.

Is it not wondrous how even the tiniest grain of love will permeate the saddest and sorest recesses of the heart, and instantly cause it to pulsate with thoughts and emotions the sweetest and dearest in life? O Love, thou sweet, thou young and rose lipped cherubim, how does thy smile illuminate the universe! how does thy slightest touch electrify the soul! how gently and tenderly dost thou lead us up to heaven!

With Surrey, to decide was to act. The second letter, full of sweetest yet intensest love,—his heart laid bare to her,—was written; was sent, enclosed in one to his aunt. Tom was away in another section, fighting manfully for the dear old flag, or the precious missive would have been intrusted to his care. He sent it thus that it might reach her sooner. Now that he had a fresh hope, he could not wait to write for her address, and forward it himself to her hands; he must adopt the speediest method of putting it in her possession.

In a little space came answer from Mrs. Russell, enclosing the letter he had sent: a kindly epistle it was. He was a sort of idol with this same aunt, so she had put many things on paper that were steeped in gentleness and affection ere she said at the end, "I re-enclose your letter. I have seen Miss Ercildoune. She restores it to you; she implores you never to write her again,—to forget her. I add my entreaties to hers. She begs of me to beseech you not to try her by any further appeals, as she will but return them unopened." That was all.

What could it mean? He loved her so absolutely, he had such exalted faith in her kindness, her gentleness, her fairness and superiority,—in her,—that he could not believe she would so thrust back his love, purely and chivalrously offered, with something that seemed like ignominy, unless she had a sufficient reason—or one she deemed such—for treating so cruelly him and the offering he laid at her feet.

But she had spoken. It was for him, then, when she bade silence, to keep it; when she refused his gift, to refrain from thrusting it upon her attention and heart. But ah, the silence and the refraining! Ah, the time—the weary, sore, intolerable time—that followed! Summer, and autumn, and winter, and the seasons repeated once again, he tramped across the soil of Virginia, already wet with rebel and patriot blood; he felt the shame and agony of Bull Run; he was in the night struggle at Ball's Bluff, where those wondrous Harvard boys found it "sweet to die for their country," and discovered, for them, "death to be but one step onward in life." He lay in camp, chafing with impatience and indignation as the long months wore away, and the thousands of graves about Washington, filled by disease and inaction, made "all quiet along the Potomac." He went down to Yorktown; was in the sweat and fury of the seven days' fight; away in the far South, where fever and pestilence stood guard to seize those who were spared by the bullet and bayonet; and on many a field well lost or won. Through it all marching or fighting, sick, wounded thrice and again; praised, admired, heroic, promoted,—from private soldier to general,—through two years and more of such fiery experience, no part of the tender love was burned away, tarnished, or dimmed.

Sometimes, indeed, he even smiled at himself for the constant thought, and felt that he must certainly be demented on this one point at least, since it colored every impression of his life, and, in some shape, thrust itself upon him at the most unseemly and foreign times.

One evening, when the mail for the division came in, looking over the pile of letters, his eye was caught by one addressed to James Given. The name was familiar,—that of his father's old foreman, whom he knew to be somewhere in the army; doubtless the same man. Unquestionably, he thought, that was the reason he was so attracted to it; but why he should take up the delicate little missive, scan it again and again, hold it in his hand with the same touch with which he would have pressed a rare flower, and lay it down as reluctantly as he would have yielded a known and visible treasure,—that was the mystery. He had never seen Francesca's writing, but he stood possessed, almost assured, of the belief that this letter was penned by her hand; and at last parted with it slowly and unwillingly, as though it were the dear hand of which he mused; then took himself to task for this boyish weakness and folly. Nevertheless, he went in pursuit of Jim, not to question him,—he was too thorough a gentleman for that,—but led on partly by his desire to see a familiar face, partly by this folly, as he called it with a sort of amused disdain.

Folly, however, it was not, save in such measure as the subtle telegraphings between spirit and spirit can be thus called. Unjustly so called they are, constantly; it being the habit of most people to denounce as heresy or ridicule as madness things too high for their sight or too deep for their comprehension. As these people would say, "oddly enough," or "by an extraordinary coincidence," this very letter was from Miss Ercildoune,—a letter which she wrote as she purposed, and as she well knew how to write, in behalf of Sallie. It was ostensibly on quite another theme; asking some information in regard to a comrade, but so cunningly devised and executed as to tell him in few words, and unsuspiciously, some news of Sallie,—news which she knew would delight his heart, and overthrow the little barrier which had stood between them, making both miserable, but which he would not, and she could not, clamber over or destroy. It did its work effectually, and made two hearts thoroughly happy,—this letter which had so strangely bewitched Surrey; which, in his heart, spite of the ridicule of his reason, he was so sure was hers; and which, indeed, was hers, though he knew not that till long afterward.

"So," he thought, as he went through the camp, "Given is here, and near. I shall be glad to see a face from home, whatever kind of a face it may be, and Given's is a good one; it will be a pleasant rememberance."

"Whither away?" called a voice behind him.

"To the 29th," he answered the questioner, one of his officers and friends, who, coming up, took his arm,—"in pursuit of a man."

"What's his name?"

"Given,—christened James. What are you laughing at? do you know him?"

"No, I don't know him, but I've heard some funny stories about him; he's a queer stick, I should think."

"Something in that way.—Helloa! Brooks, back again?" to a fine, frank-looking young fellow,—"and were you successful?"

"Yes, to both your questions. In addition I'll say, for your rejoicing, that I give in, cave, subside, have nothing more to say against your pet theory,—from this moment swear myself a rank abolitionist, or anything else you please, now and forever,—so help me all ye black gods and goddesses!"

"Phew! what's all this?" cried Whittlesly, from the other side of his Colonel; "what are you driving at? I'll defy anybody to make head or tail of that answer."

"Surrey understands."

"Not I; your riddle's too much for me."

"Didn't you go in pursuit of a dead man?" queried Whittlesly.

"Just that."

"Did the dead man convert you?"

"No, Colonel, not precisely. And yet yes, too; that is, I suppose I shouldn't have been converted if he hadn't died, and I gone in search of him."

"I believe it; you're such an obstinate case that you need one raised from the dead to have any effect on you."

"Obstinate! O, hear the pig-headed fellow talk! You're a beauty to discourse on that point, aren't you!"

"Surrey laughed, and stopped at the call of one of his men, who hailed him as he went by. Evidently a favorite here as in New York, in camp as at home; for in a moment he was surrounded by the men, who crowded about him, each with a question, or remark, to draw special attention to himself, and a word or smile from his commander. Whatever complaint they had to enter, or petition to make, or favor to beg, or wish to urge, whatever help they wanted or information they desired, was brought to him to solve or to grant, and—never being repulsed by their officer—they speedily knew and loved their friend. Thus it was that the two men standing at a little distance, watching the proceeding, were greatly amused at the motley drafts made upon his attention in the shape of tents, shoes, coats, letters to be sent or received, books borrowed and lent, a man sick, or a chicken captured. They brought their interests and cares to him,—these big, brown fellows,—as though they were children, and he a parent well beloved.

"One might think him the father of the regiment," said Brooks, with a smile.

"The mother, more like: it must be the woman element in him these fellows feel and love so."

"Perhaps; but it would have another effect on them, if, for instance, he didn't carry that sabre-slash on his hand. They've seen him under steel and fire, and know where he's led them."

"What is this you were joking about with him, a while ago?"

"What! about turning abolitionist?"

"Precisely."

"O, you know he's rampant on the slavery question. I believe it's the only thing he ever loses his temper over, and he has lost it with me more than once. I've always been a rank heretic with regard to Cuffee, and the result was, we disagreed."

"Yes, I know. But what connection has that with your expedition?"

"Just what I want to know," added Surrey, coming up at the moment.

"Ah! you're in time to hear the confession, are you?"

"'An honest confession—'You know what the wise man says."

"Come, don't flatter yourself we will think you so because you quote him. Be quiet, both of you, and let me go on to tell my tale."

"Attention!"

"Proceed!"

"Thus, then. You understand what my errand was?"

"Not exactly; Lieutenant Hunt was drowned somewhere, wasn't he?"

"Yes: fell overboard from a tug; the men on board tried to save him, and then to recover his body, and couldn't do either. Some of his people came down here in pursuit of it, and I was detailed with a squad to help them in their search.

"Well, the naval officers gave us every facility in their power; the river was dragged twice over, and the woods along-shore ransacked, hoping it might have been washed in and, maybe, buried; but there wasn't sight or trace of it. While we were hunting round we stumbled on a couple of darkies, who told us, after a bit of questioning, that darky number three, somewhere about, had found the body of a Federal officer on the river bank, and buried it. On that hint we acted, posted over to the fellow's shanty, and found, not him, but his wife, who was ready enough to tell us all she knew. She showed us some traps of the buried officer, among them a pair of spurs, which his brother recognized directly. When she was quite sure that we were all correct, and that the thing had fallen into the right hands, she fished out of some safe corner his wallet, with fifty-seven dollars in it. I confess I stared, for they were slaves, both of them, and evidently poor as Job's turkey, and it has always been one of my theories that a nigger invariably steals when he gets a chance. However, I wasn't going to give in at that."

"Of course you weren't," said the Colonel. "Did you ever read about the man who was told that the facts did not sustain his theory, and of his sublime answer? 'Very well,' said he, 'so much the worse for the facts!'"

"Come, Colonel, you talk too much. How am I ever to get on with my narrative, if you keep interrupting me in this style? Be quiet."