CHAPTER VII.

"We see not, know not; all our way
Is night-with Thee alone is day;
From out the torrent's troubled drift,
Above the storm our prayers we lift,
Thy will be done."

THE woman who found the lonely girl and the dead mother was a neighbor living in the rooms across the hall on the same floor of this tenement house in which Putnam Breuster and his family had been living for the last few months.

Fortunately for the orphan child, she was a sensible as well as kind woman-a woman of tact, though poor and illiterate; being past middle life, and having had much experience in sickness and sorrow, from adversity and death, and possessing considerable natural refinement of feeling, she had been able to sympathize with, and do much for, those two in their deep afflictions.

Now she tenderly awakened Hannah, and after the first burst of agonized grief at finding her mother dead, she turned her attention from the

mother to little labors of love necessary to be performed for that mother's sake.

In a bright, motherly manner, she set her to work to help in tidying up all things around, before strangers should be called in, saying, as they worked together, "We will do this or that, because she would have liked it so." She kept the little maiden busy thus, and finally had her select garments for burial, and from among the few articles left of other days, from an old trunk, she brought the rich, bright blue silk, with its costly laces, in which her mother stood a bride, when first she bore the name of Dare. This was one of a very

few suits of clothing Nannie had brought with her from her childhood's home, and it was best loved because she wore it when first she saw Frank Dare. Made high at the neck, and with long, flowing sleeves, it was not unsuited for this occasion; on the breast was a knot of rare old lace, pinned in with what had been a lovely little cluster of bridal roses-now, alas, but faded leaves; they were just where his fingers had placed them years before, and thus they went down with her to the silence and gloom of the grave. When dressed, the kind-hearted neighbor called Hannah into the room to confer with her about the arrangement of her mother's hair, finally letting her comb and

place the lovely, shining waves of golden hair as she knew looked best. All this was done "for ma," as if she were still a living presence-the much-loved mother, and not a corpse.

Of course tears and sobs would come; the kind neighbor could not rob the scene of its grief, but she did divest it of much of the grim terror and hard terms which generally attend a death-bed

scene.

For the last few weeks, since the arrest and imprisonment of Putnam Breuster, the fate of this lady and her child had impressed these plain, kindhearted neighbors exceedingly. There had been many interchanges of civilities, kindly expressions of sympathy and deeds of kindness, which had gradually knit their souls together in ties which would not easily break, and thus it was that the neighbor across the hall took upon herself to perform these last sad offices for the dead, feeling that it would be more acceptable from her than from entire strangers.

I have mentioned the fact that war had been declared against the south, and that men had been called to quell the rebellion, "the Union to restore."

Our cities and towns were full of the noise and

activity, the clang and clatter, naturally resulting from such a state of affairs.

Near the town in which Haunah resided were several camps. Infantry and cavalrymen, heavy trains of wagons with camp supplies, were passing and repassing daily and hourly; morning and evening fifteen hundred horses being led to and from the river for water, and the bugle's shrill call, gave life a vivid glow, never to be forgotten.

The husband and two sons of the kind neighbor of whom I have been speaking were volunteers in a regiment of cavalry camped near town, and for many weeks their coming and going, with occasionally a friend or two, had made a pleasant excitement, or a something to be noticed by the quiet little maiden, and to talk over with her feeble mother.

And to those soldier boys this sad-eyed girl and the gentle, lady mother had a fascination; they were so evidently people with a history utterly unlike their surroundings, and the occasional glimpses of that very mystery added to the interest, as age adds to the value of rare pictures. And now, when the final sad scene had come, they were all full of generous, boyish emotions, and wanted to do something-anything to help her in her trouble. That burst of sympathy wherever we find it, which

makes us want to do something for a sufferer, is the impulse of the soul to obey the Maker's command, "Bear ye one another's burdens."

The chaplain of the regiment to which these boys belonged had often stopped in to see fathers or sons, and, by chance, hearing of the sickness and grief across the hall, had very naturally and consistently, for a Christian, stepped in to read, talk and pray with the dying woman.

As a matter of course, now the boys thought at once of their chaplain when they heard of the death, and at once planned with their mother to ask him to conduct the funeral services, when off duty and at liberty to come.

It was a strange funeral, this, for the daughter of a proud old race. In the far sunny south lay six square miles of plantation, peopled by hundreds of black slaves-in all of which she had once felt the pride of ownership, and now she had to accept the two by six feet of ground for a resting place at the hands of public charity. But what matter to her? "In my Father's house are many mansions," and to that her title was goodher claim undisputed.

They gathered together-two women, an army chaplain, two private soldiers and their young lieutenant who, being touched with pity at the story