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"Ah! How did that happen?" He hesitated a moment before replying. I was decoyed into their hands." When, and in what way?" Again he hesitated, and the general sharply repeated his question.

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"I was on my way dressed as a guerrilla, to carry a message from you to General Johnston when I was overtaken by a young man who seemed to know my mission and pretended to have been sent forward by you to guide me by a safer and nearer route. As I was hesitating whether to believe him or not, I found myself surrounded by a lot of Yankee soldiers, who took us both prisoners. As I was dressed as a guerrilla, and likely to fare the worse for it, I consented to give the letter I carried into his hands to be delivered as soon as possible to General Johnston, thinking that he, being a civilian, was not likely to be long detained." "But I do not see any reason for your assertion that you were decoyed into the Yankees' hands."

Again the savage look crossed the face

of the young man.

"I soon learned that this young man, who was no other than Jean Delong, alias Mrs. McAlpine, had somehow obtained information of my business, and had given the Yankees notice of the matter, and that the letter went directly into the hands of General Grant."

"This is a strange story, Redman, and lacks confirmation, to say the least. But even if true, I wish General Grant much good of the letter. It was written in cipher. You will however allow me to say that I do not believe a word of it from beginning to end. What reason have you for asserting that this boy, this Jean Delong, is a woman, and that woman Florence McAlpine?"

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I have seen her in her own house and know her to be the same."

Pshaw, man! And this is all the foundation for your shameless cock-andbull story? Well, sir, let me tell you Mrs. McAlpine is now in this house, and you shall be confronted with her to-mor

row. I will not be so uncourteous as to disturb her at this hour. But I will know the truth or falsity of your tale, and you will not leave this house to-night. You will find a comfortable bed in yonder room, which you will now seek, for I have other business on hand."

Taking a candle from the table, Redman, without a word, but with a look which to his host seemed villanous, entered the indicated room and shut the door. In another moment the general had ordered a sentinel under its windows, when, after a few remarks on the strange story, the two gentlemen separated for the night, the doctor, in consequence of the lateness of the hour, remaining at headquarters.

Once more alone, the general, as if sleep were not one of the necessities of life, sat down to a mass of written documents which lay on the table; but seeming unable to give them his attention, he leaned his head upon his hand and gave himself up to thought.

"Strange!strange!" he many times repeated; "and yet some things in her conduct have long seemed inexplicable. Can it be that she is a traitor? But I will not believe it."

Compelling himself to give his attention to the important documents before him, he soon became absorbed in their contents. That they were not pleasant seemed evident. His pale face waxed paler, and his restless eyes gleamed darkly from under his heavy brows, knit into̟ a painful contraction.

"The chances are wofully against us," he murmured; "but I will fight on. It shall never be said that I surrendered while mule meat could be obtained and one round of ammunition was left. But the end draws near! - it draws near, and cannot be long averted!"

With a heavy sigh and a dreamy gaze around the apartment, the Confederate leader arose from his chair and began slowly to pace to and fro, now and then pausing to gaze from the windows out over the devastated city. It was a melancholy hour to him. He thought of the thousands of women and children, hungry, emaciated for want of food, burrowing

like foxes under the earth, slowly contracting the deadly fever or wasting away under the slow torture of consumption. His own wife had not yet consented, to remain in so dreary an abode, but in the face of every danger continued to occupy the dwelling which he himself held as headquarters. By some fortunate interposition it had not yet been visited by a shot or a shell, and the gentle mistress of the mansion had almost begun to believe that they bore charmed lives.

"But it makes little difference now," he thought. "The Federal leader has hemmed us in like a badger in its hole, and my surrender is only a question of time. Starvation will soon decide the hour, if the shells of the enemy do not. Where can Johnston be? Can it be true that, as the villain Redman asserts, the widow of one of my best friends has betrayed me? I will not believe it; yet the morrow must make the matter sure, by bringing her face to face with her accuser. The emergency warrants any step which may seem necessary, however inhospitable or uncourteous.

"And that Federal officer she was harboring in her cave! It looks suspicious. He must be in my hands before many hours. But I see the signs of morning, and must sleep."

Turning from the window, the general extinguished the light in the apartment and rolling himself in his blanket threw himself upon a lounge and was soon sound asleep.

An hour later he was awakened by a slight confusion outside. Springing to his feet, he was about opening the door to inquire its cause when a gentleman was announced, courier from Johnston.

"I bring you despatches," said he, "from General Johnston, and letters for yourself and wife."

"From Johnston? Ah! give them to me."

Hardly could he restrain his impatience long enough to break the seals, when with an eager eye he ran over their contents. What their nature was did not transpire. But the officers standing round augured nothing favorable from the fallen face and sad frown that settled

darkly on their leader's brow. Silently folding the papers, he placed them in his pocket, and courteously turning to the courier, bade him welcome.

"But how did you enter the city? I had thought no one could approach within miles without being intercepted."

"I came through the fleet, sir, last night, and met with no interruption."

"Through the fleet? But in what manner? Surely, the Federals are not wont to be so courteous to those wishing to visit us."

"I owe them small thanks for their courtesy in my case, sir. In fact, I kept out of their way. I came down the Yazoo River in a little skiff to its confluence with the Mississippi, where I went ashore, and tying my boat to a tree, entered the woods and waited until night. When it grew too dark for me to be observed, I took off my clothes, wrapped my despatches in them, and bound all firmly to a piece of plank. With this I entered the river and, holding on to it and just keeping my head above water, I floated down the river, making my way unobserved through the fleet, and before light this morning I was two miles below it, and had entered Vicksburg."

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My brave fellow!" exclaimed the general, holding out his hand, "what do I not owe you for your daring feat? But you must be faint and nearly exhausted remaining all night in the water. I think we can manage to procure wood enough to make a little fire on the hearth, where you can warm your chilled frame until breakfast is ready. You are fond of mule steak, I hope, as that is the only luxury I shall be able to offer you aside from very good bread."

The courier smiled. "Anything that you can make use of as food will answer for me. But I am prepared to enjoy the luxury of this warm fire," he continued, rubbing his hands and holding them out to the glow; "for in truth I am pretty thoroughly chilled with my protracted bath."

Drawing a comfortable chair to the hearth, the general bade his guest sit down while he attended to some avocations which he could not neglect, and he

passed on to the room occupied by Redman. On opening the door, he found that he was not there, the open window betraying the means of his escape.

"The rascal!" he exclaimed; " why was he not better watched? Lieutenant!" he called to a young officer below, "where is the man I ordered you to guard last night?"

"Within that room, I suppose; surely, he cannot have escaped. No one has passed this way since I received your orders but one of our own men."

[From Goethe's "Wilhelm Meisler." THE SONG OF MIGNON.

By Lilly Waters.. "Mignon is one of the most interesting charchildhood she was stolen from her home in acters in Wilhelm, Meister.' In her earliest Italy by a company of strolling jugglers and taught to perform feats on the rope. Meister one day chanced to witness the performances of this troop, during which the child was unmercifully abused; he obtained possession of her, and became her protector. One morning he was surprised to find her before his door singing to a cithern which had accidentally fallen into her hands. On finishing her song she looked keenly at Wilhelm a moment, then asked, 'Knowest thou the land?' He said, 'It must be Italy. (The history of the child was

"Ah! the rascal! another of his tricks! Well, they who play with fire must sometimes be burned; " and dismissing all thought of the affair, he returned to his guest, determining to re-examine Florence during the morning, as yet a mystery to him.) Where didst thou though sure, by the evasion of her accus-get that little song?' Italy!' said Mignon, er, that she was innocent of the charges with an earnest air; if thou go to Italy, take brought against her. me along with thee, for I am too cold here.' 'Hast thou been there already, little dear?'

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"I will ask her point-blank, and I know, whatever else she may have been said he; but the child was silent and nothing guilty of, that she will not tell me a falsemore could be got out of her." hood."

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KNOW'ST thou the land where the citron flower

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THE MOTHER'S FOOTFALL.
By Mrs. Caroline A. Soule.

THEY took him from the battle-field upon a stretcher; he was so shattered that the jar of the ambulance, though never so carefully driven, would have killed him before it reached the hospital. They lifted him upon the cot as gently as though he had been a new-born babe, and while one bathed his forehead continually, another moistened his lips, and yet another stood by and fanned him till the surgeon came to bind up his wounds. When the last bandage was fastened, and the sheet,— he was too sore to bear even the weight of a single blanket, was drawn over his mangled limbs, and the assistants had departed, he turned his face, ghastly as that of a corpse, to the surgeon, and whispered in tremulous

tones,

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"You shall, my boy;" and taking out his note-book, the man bent his ear close to the white lips, and listened as they told him her name and place of residence. Pencilling them down, he said, "You shall see her in forty-eight hours."

"But I can't live so long as that." "Yes, you can; keep up a good heart. You shall see your mother;" yet as he spoke the tears stood in his eyes, for he knew the poor boy's life was ebbing at every pulse.

Fifteen minutes from the time he left that bedside, these words were flashing over the wires to Mrs. M: "Your son George is mortally wounded. He wants to see you." Brief sentences, the one a dirge, the other a hope!

Two hours from the time it started on its way, and it was in the mother's hands. One hour afterwards, and that mother sat in a depot, counting the minutes till the train should rush along, the train that was to bear her towards that guilty South, upon one of whose crimson fields her boy had shed his blood. What she suffered while she waited, — what she endured during the first long night, and the tedious day, and the second yet longer night, and the second yet more tedious day, oh, never, never can it be told by

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mortal tongue or written by human fingers. Had not her heart been half paralyzed by the sudden shock, she could never have sat there in that breathless agony, seemingly chained to those cushions, as maniacs are fettered. White, cold, and tearless, she sat there, counting the milestones in the sunlight, and the hours all through the night.

And her boy, her youngest born, her darling, pride, and idol? For the first few hours, they stilled his groans and pain with morphine. Afterwards, as the purple seams grew broader over the wounds, and the dark spots spread larger, they only gave him now and then, a drop of wine or brandy, or a spoonful of green tea,-something to keep his strength up till his mother came; for the pain had ceased, and the ominous peace came on that sometimes slowly, but ever surely, precedes the dying hour.

As the surgeon made his rounds the second morning, the poor wounded hero opened his eyes and said, "Will she come?"

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Yes, my boy, she is on her way;' but he sighed as he replaced the white fingers under the sheet; for the pulse flickered as a lamp in an autumn wind.

After that George did not speak; he did not even stir hand or foot, but lay there so pale, so still, that they could only tell he breathed by putting their ears close to his mouth, or else touching the flesh above his heart. They spoke to him, but he did not answer; they parted his lips and dropped stimulants between his teeth, and the liquids trickled slowly over his chin and stained the sheets.

"I almost wish she would not come till it is over," whispered one. "It will be harder for her to see him this way than to find him dead."

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And so weary hours passed on. ́ The train rushed into the depot. Many carriages were filled in a moment's time, and rolled off to the hospital. The steward met each pale-faced visitor with kindly greetings, and directed them here and there. But when a lady said to him, “I want to see my George," he took her by the hand and led her to his own room, and told her exactly how George was.

She listened with apparent calmness, then said quickly, "Let me go to him." He led her to the ward, and bidding her wait a moment at the door, went in and looked upon the boy. There was no change, and the nurse said solemnly, "He is almost gone, nothing will rouse him any more."

Going back, the steward motioned her to enter. She went in with footfalls so light they would hardly have crushed a blade of grass. Closer and closer she drew towards the cot. There was a breathless silence in the ward. Another step and yet another; one more, and she will stand beside him.

"Mother, is that you?" Whence came those words? From the lips of that dying boy! Yes, the mother's footfall had been recognized, though

for hours the ear had been hushed to every other sound.

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Mother, is that you?" "Yes, George."

"Oh, I knew it — I felt it; mother, mother, just so you used to come in when I was sick at home."

Whence came his strength, none knew; but he lifted his arms and wound them

about her neck, and kissed her cheeks and forehead and lips, and between every kiss said softly, "My mother, O my

mother!"

Afterwards she sat down upon the cot and they moved him till he lay with his head upon her heart, her two arms folded about him. There were whispered words of love, there were tears and kisses, such words, such tears, such kisses, as only mothers and children speak and shed and give when each may be the last. The clock struck twelve. Good-by good-by you'll come heaven." "Yes, my boy." "I'll listen for you, mother. Goodby."

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A few moments later, and gentle women bore the fainting mother to another room, while waiting nurses shrouded her dead boy.

MATERIALISTIC TENDENCIES.

By M. Bautain,

EVERY science at present, which is not subservient directly or indirectly to some material want or enjoyment, that is, to something positive, as the saying is, falls into corruption or opprobrium, or is at least abandoned. Philosophy furnishes a melancholy example. True, it has well deserved this fate by its excess and extravagance in recent times; and the same will invariably befall it, whenever it affects independence, and refuses fealty to divine authority. It is the same with literature, the fine arts, and whatever promotes the civilization of men and the tri

umph of the divine principle made after the image of God over the brute formed noble objects are abandoned as useless, or after the image of the world. All these of little importance to the wants and happiness of actual society. Religion has alone survived, thanks to her unchange which place her above human institutions able teaching and her divine origin, and the vicissitudes of earth. But for the Rock of the divine word, but for the divine foundation-stone on which she is

built, she, also, under pretence of rendersuited to the wants and lights of her age, ing her more useful or more positive, more would have been lowered and materialized; then the last link which binds hu

manity to heaven would have been broken, and the spiritual man would have been wholly interred in the slough of this world, buried in sensuality.

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"NETTIE GAY " is the name of a new book by the wife of one of our clergyTHE fatal fact in the case of a hypocrite men. It is an appropriate present to a is that he is a hypocrite.

miss of from eight to fourteen years.

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