Just now this fact of personal power needs an especial emphasis at the fountainhead of the determining of character-the home. Women who are getting chafed and wearied with its exactions-and some of them are Christian women-might very well hang up in their rooms these motto-words for frequent notice: "The mother of Augustine;""The mother of John Newton;" "The mother of Emanuel Kant." Nor are these the greater three. But they and the rest wrought their noble and loving task where it must still and ever be wrought where little boys and girls are living and growing day and night, in health and sickness, in easy and in straitened circumstances. There are as bright and priceless gems yet to be polished as any of the former ones. Is it merely keeping the wheels of life in motion? That is much, when they rotate to such good purpose. The revolution of the grindstone is monotonous enough; but it puts an edge to the fine metal. Jeremy Taylor shall finish the argument with one of his grand perorations:

"Not only those who have opportunity and powers of a magnificent religion or a pompous charity, . . . . or assiduous and effectual preachings, or exterior demonstrations of corporal mercy, shall have the

....

greatest crowns, and the addition of degrees and accidental rewards; but the silent affections, the splendors of an internal devotion, the unions of love, humility and obedience, the daily offices of prayer and praises sung to God, the acts of faith and fear, of patience and meekness, of hope and reverence, repentance and charity, and those graces which walk in a veil and silence, make great ascents to God, and as sure progress to favor and a crown as the more ostentatious and laborious exercises of a more solemn religion. No man needs to complain of want of power or opportunities for religious perfections; a devout woman in her closet, praying with much zeal and affection for the conversion of souls, is in the same order to a shining like the stars in glory as he, who by excellent discourses, puts it into a more forward disposition to be actually performed. And possibly her prayers obtained energy and force to my sermon, and made the ground fruitful and the seed spring up to life eternal. Many times God is present in the still voice and private retirements of a quiet religion, and the constant spiritualities of an ordinary life," giving these a power that is denied to "the loud and impetuous winds, and the shining fires of more laborious and expensive actions." J. T. Tucker.

Paul H. Hayne.

CHAPTER XIII.

Where in light gambols healthy striplings sport,
Ambitious learning builds her outer court;
A grave preceptor there her usher stands,
And rules, without a rod, her little bands.

Timothy Dwight. "I AM quite in earnest," said General Mackaye to Rachel, and, as he spoke, he rose from his chair and shut both the doors of the room; "I am quite in earnest, and that is the reason why I have brought up this case with me." So saying, he unrolled from its newspaper cover a mahogany pistol case. "Let these lie upon your table; say nothing to anybody about them, and it will not be long before all Laurens Harbour knows that they are here. And whenever you choose to go out with me and Tirah yonder to practice at a mark in the garden lot, I am at your service. Or perhaps we had better go without Tirah. If your shots are bad, it would be as well that no one except me should know it."

Rachel laughed. "Then I think to-day we will go without her. Have you everything you want?”

"Have you a paper of pins with you? We shall find some stick or tree that we can fix our mark to."

And as they walked up the gentle slope of the hill side, "I am quite sure," said he, "that the bark of these people is worse than their bite. Indeed I am never afraid of people who threaten much; you know the old proverb. Really the only danger is in whisky. These fellows get it sometimes I wish I knew where or how; and on some night when they have been drinking more than they ought, some of them will be go ing home, bragging of their prowess, really

not knowing what they are doing, and your little establishment or my sentinel here might suffer. Now an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure; and I have observed that even Dutch courage does not break its head against stone walls. Do you know what Dutch courage is?"

Yes, Rachel did know what Dutch courage was. But the phrase is dying out, for the slang of one generation is replaced by the slang of another, and for young readers it may be said that "Dutch courage" is the courage of the man who has been drinking whisky or other liquor.

Rachel proved a better shot than she had dared to think, and the General praised her success. She observed that the mark which he gave her was, in every case, a visiting card,—always a new card. In twenty shots, at a considerable distance, she succeeded once in striking the card itself. This card the General put in his pocket, and so long as he was in command at Laurens Harbour, it stood conspicuous over the mantel at head-quarters, with the inscription in large letters:

"Shot made by Miss Fredet at fifteen paces." No inscription mentioned how many cards Miss Fredet had missed in the practice.

So soon as Tirah found what the pistol case was for, and found that under certain restrictions she was permitted to join in the practice, her enthusiasm for powder and shot was unbounded. This was the crowning evidence that she was indeed free, that she might handle fire-arms; and without anything vindictive, the girl had a shrewd determination to acquire to her

very best the ability on which, as she rightly reasoned, all civil institutions, all government, and indeed, all liberty depend. Rachel became a very decent shot, and Tirah's prowess was really extraordinary. One of Tirah's targets stood over Rachel's mantelpiece, and there was no need of doctoring it before it was subject to general inspection.

If the neighborhood believed that both Tirah and Rachel went about with a weapon in some concealed pistol pocket, it was not that Rachel started that story. Whether Tirah were quite proof against temptation to exaggerating in language, it is not for this chronicle to state; but, if half the stories in Laurens Harbour were true, both of these women were walking armories. In fact, as need hardly be said, neither of them carried any weapon except in the occasional practice which has been alluded to.

Indeed the pistol practice was not wholly in Rachel's line, although she acquiesced in it, at the General's request, regarding him as her superior officer. She wanted these people to love her, and she did not want to have them afraid of her. When she said this to him, he said that she might make everybody love her who was capable of loving; but that men blind with whisky were not capable of loving. He believed, however, that they would be very far gone, before they would make a serious attack on a house held by two well-armed women who knew how to use their weapons. Rachel herself had more confidence in her colored allies, and had tested so thoroughly their allegiance that she believed she might rely on them to the end. Mr. Bottle was always a little afraid of her grammar, and other "book-learning." He knew enough to know that his cases, persons, numbers and genders would not pass any Northern examination board. But he was not afraid of her on any other side. Nor did she ever, by any token, intimate that on this side she had any advantage. She knew he knew a great deal more of his people and their ways than she did. She sat at his feet, unaffect edly, when it came to consultations as to any improvement in their habits, their social order, or their morals. And, as the

Christmas holidays passed, and the winter ground by, she was able more than once to render him essential service in what he wanted to carry out in his re-born church; as, on his part, he came to her rescue fifty times in the discipline of the school. The evident sympathy and co-operation of these two chiefs greatly advanced the order and promoted the steadiness of the little community, in what was really its reorganization.

General MacKaye's sentinels, at Rachel's eager request, were withdrawn in the day time to their old beat up and down in front of the government store-houses, the barracks, and the head-quarters proper. It was no fault of his arrangements, therefore, that one Monday morning, as the scholars gathered, now quite punctually, and took their seats preparatory to the opening exercise of prayer, a grand crash took place in the school-room, which for an instant threatened serious danger. For serious injury, indeed, had it been laboriously prepared. The younger children, always the earliest on the ground, had come in, dropping their courtesies or their grotesque bows as they entered. Their hands had passed inspection of the monitors, and if not up to test, the children had taken their turns at the wash-basins. As the hand of the dapper and noisy clock approached nine, a file of larger boys and girls came in all together, vying with each other indeed, which should bring the largest armful of wood for the pile by the stove, when the crash came. The rough floor gave way, with enormous seams between the planks, into which rolled more than one slate and primer; though by some marvel no child's foot was caught. Rachel's table tipped forward, and dictionaries, ink-stands, bell, water pitcher and tumblers were piled in one heap before her platform. A scream rose which would not have been improved upon had the Angel Gabriel in person blown that trump, with which these children were as familiar in imagination as they were with the daily morning call of the cavalry. But discipline, in all else, was perfect. Not a brat of six years old left her bench, although more than one row had all to clutch the

seat on which they sat. Rachel found herself standing. She had seized the end of the table as it went over, and now as it stood on the other end, she grasped one of the legs, and balanced herself on a timber of her platform which did not give way. She held up her hand, and the screams stopped.

"Sit just as you are," she said. And she smiled encouragement as she saw that they sat firm. Then to Tirah, who was at the door, "See what is the matter." Not a step jarred the trembling fabric. And in an instant Tirah returned to the open door and took command.

"Laury Spicer. Slow! Stop dar! 'F you hurry, Darby, break your neck sure 's you live."

"Diny Laurens. Dat's right. Slow! Slow! See dar. You don't gain nothin' by hurry."

And so she went on, calling out bench after bench; and by a sort of resolute command, felt

more distinctly than expressed in words, compelled the frightened children to creep by her into the open air. Rachel left last of all. It was almost an effort of gymnastics to descend from her shaking platform.

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No, miss," said Tirah, "don't you go in. Look here!" And she pointed in the gloom to the girder which in its fall had so swung round that it sustained the floor, and had kept all these poor children from the fate designed for them.

In the holiday of Saturday, some hardworking rascals of the Secesh had concealed themselves in the cellar, formerly sacred to pigs under the barn. This had been diligently cleaned out by the General's direction, when the building itself was turned over to be a school-house. In the night these adventurers had sawed the main timbers under Rachel's desk so nearly through, that they hung only by a few fibres. In fact, one had broken, as it was meant to do, at one end, but at the other end the uncut part had held, so that the stick in falling to the ground had taken a vertical position, and had become the pillar which had supported the yielding floor. Tirah had not much knowledge of engineering, but she had the

wit to see that such a shaking reed must not be roughly disturbed. As it proved, no child was even scratched in the downfall which had been so painfully prepared.

As Tirah made her usual rounds that night, she saw on the roadway, a little below the sentry, two great lanterns made from gourds or squashes, set up with brilliant lights in them, grinning derisively as she fancied. She did not even speak to the sentinel. She went back to the house and returned with her pistol. A sharp crack, and one head was gone; another crack, and the other toppled over. When she looked for them in the morning they were gone. The makers had carried them away in the night, and had a chance to admire the precision with which a hole, not made by them, bored the middle of each empty forehead above the line of the eyes.

CHAPTER XIV.

Few streaks announced the coming day,
How slow, alas, it came.

I thought that line of silver gray
Would never dapple into day,
So sullenly it rolled away
Before the golden flame

Rose, splendid, and dethroned the stars,
And robbed their radiance from their cars,
And filled the world, from his bright throne,
With lovely lustre all his own.

As Rachel sat reading at her window, on the afternoon of a winter day, not long after the crash at the school house, the Doctor rode up, on the outside. She started for the door, but he withheld her, by a gesture, and when she offered to open the window, he shook his head. Then he called " Small-pox" aloud, so that she could hear through the window.

She bade him wait, threw on a cloak and hood, and ran out. The doctor would not heed her assurance that she was fearless, and had perfect confidence in her protection, but kept well on the other side of the road as he talked with her.

Doctor. It's a bad business any way. A wretched child, looked as if she were starving, and indeed she was, came down from a hole they call Coffin's Hollow. It is four miles back behind the Knob here. The child said her mother was dying, she