shot down his own brother-in-law, Mr. Tanner-they do say Mrs. Tanner, his sister, who is a bitter Secessionist, actually put her brother Jim up to it ever since Tanner was found lying dead in the road with a ball through his head for being a Union man, John has been careful as a man could be. Letters from Isaac! How could John get letters from Isaac? As God hears me, Sir, John never saw one that I didn't show him. But you've heard the story; I have no heart to tell it, hardened as I'm getting to almost anything. A party of a dozen of them broke into his house at midnight: said to his daughters, poor things! screaming around, they only wanted to take him to Somerville to be conscripted. Sarah, the eldest, knew better; she clung to him till they tore her off, some of them holding her to the wall while they tied John's hands. As they was dragging him out, Sarah she begged and screamed only to be let give him her gray-headed old father-one last kiss; they wouldn't let her do even that, the man holding her saying things-Can you make yourself believe, Sir, that such a thing can be true in this Christian land?" says Mrs. Smith, speaking more slowly, exhausted with weeping till not a tear is left, emotion itself worn out from exercise so intense and so long. "Sarah here in the next room could tell you herself. They dragged that unoffending old man-lived fifteen years in the neighborhood-out of his house, mounted their horses, and rode off at full speed, holding the end of the rope. Of course when he couldn't run he was dragged. Sarah tracked him next day by the bits of his clothes on the brush till she lost the trail over the rocks. No one but her, and she not twelve years old, near night she finds her father at last. They had hung him by the neck from a blackjack. God knows whether it was because they intended it, or because they did not know how to tie the rope so as to strangle, but he was warm yet when she came upon him. He had been hanging there in struggle and agony full fifteen hours. Sarah she had never thought to bring a knife-just think if you can of that poor young thing working there-"”

But here there is loud crying from the next room of the little houseSarah has been wakened from her slumber of exhaustion by her aunt, who has forgotten in her excitement that her niece is asleep there.

"We must get used to it, man; like things, in all varieties of hellish wickedness, are taking place every hour," says Mr. Ferguson, to whom Mr. Arthur has been telling the story. "The National Government will not or cannot help us. For His own wise purpose the Almighty is leav ing us to ourselves."

"But, sir, here's a watch that a friend, one day

(My father's friend), just over the way,

Lent me; and if you'll let me free,

-It still lacks seven minutes of Three,

I'll come, on the word of a soldier's son,

Straight back into line, when my errand's done."

"Ha, ha! No doubt of it! Off! Begone!

(Now, good Saint Denis, speed him on!

Who dreams that in his wanderings wide,
By stern misfortunes tossed and driven,
His soul's electric strands were riven
From home and country? Let betide
What might, what would, his boast, his pride,
Was in his stricken mother-land,

That could but bless and bid him go,
Because no crust was in her hand

To stay her children's need. We know

The mystic cable sank too deep

For surface storm or stress to strain,
Or from his answering heart to keep
The spark from flashing back again!

Who dreams that in his wanderings wide,
By stern misfortunes tossed and driven,
His soul's electric strands were riven
From home and country? Let betide
What might, what would, his boast, his pride,
Was in his stricken mother-land,

That could but bless and bid him go,
Because no crust was in her hand

To stay her children's need. We know
The mystic cable sank too deep

For surface storm or stress to strain,
Or from his answering heart to keep
The spark from flashing back again!