dared he call her childish? O, she was fair as the flower whose name she bore, with eyes so changeful in their light, that some called them black, but I knew they were blue, with hair like threaded sunlight, and a voice of music! Lilly had been Fred's first love; she was my first and last. Innumerable poems were locked in the secret parting of my desk, all written to, or upon" Lilly," and that one name was woven with every dream of my youth. I have not spoken of her before, yet she was in my heart. I had never said a word to Lilly, for I remembered my brother, and would not reach out my hand to pluck the flower of my love, though sometimes I thought my heart would burst for utterance. And all this self-abnegation was undesired and uncalled for! Joy mingled with my resentment. Fred loved another, and Lilly might be mine. I went to her and told her all my heart and she laid her dear hand in mine, and smiled through bright tears, and whispered that she had loved me always. Then I quite forgave Fred, and pitied him a little, too. Gushing over with happiness, I wrote in my turn, and described my Lilly. I spoke very magnanimously of Rose, and desired a brother's love to her. Mother had grown impatient for a visit from Fred, and in answer to her earnest invitation, he replied that in June he would bring his bride to the old homestead. It was then in early March, and I persuaded Lilly to think she could get ready in June for our marriage so that was to be a month of jubilee. Yet all my happiness was tempered by a shadow of coming evil. I was not a politician; men of my temperament never are, still I was not ignorant of the dangerous crisis at hand, in our national affairs. I foreboded war, though my neighbors scouted the idea. One day Fred wrote thus: "This long war of words is culminating. The North have imposed upon the South long enough, and there must be a disruption soon. I go in for secession, strong I was fired with anger, and tore the letter to ribbons, declaring that my mother should never know a son of hers wrote such disgraceful words. I felt humiliated myself, and was amazed at Fred's position; he was blinded, I thought, completely blinded. was The storm burst! It war! Dismay, grief, horror fell upon us. I was half beside myself for a few days. Poor old grandmother wept continually for her country's sin and disgrace, and my mother's pale face and sorrowful eyes told of the heart-ache within. I burned with impatience to hear from Fred. Would he say secession, now? Fred, my noble, bigh souled brother! I heard full soon. He addressed me affectionately, adjuring me not to enlist; he assured me that defeat would be upon the side of the North, and added that he wished not to meet his brother in such a conflict. He had entered the Confederate army, under Col. Delancy, the father of Rose, and hoped to prove worthy of advancement. He closed with a word of love for mother, and that was all. Had my brother died, I could have borne it; but this maddened me. Fred, my brother, a rebel, armed against his country! I was frightened at the violence of my emotion, and gasped like one suffocating. My father's son, my mothers first-born, a traitor! 66 I denounce him!" I shouted, through clenched teeth; never more will I call him brother! " "What is it, Louis?" it was my mother's clear, calm voice. 66 What is it?" I cried wildly. "Read and learn that you are a dishonored mother!" She took the letter which I extended towards her, and read. I came to my senses when I saw the color stricken out from her face, and she dropped the paper and pressed both hands over her heart; I knew a barbed arrow had sped there, quick and sure. And I might have withheld it; she might not then have known, but for my insane haste. "O, mother, forgive me!" I cried, clasping my arms about her and weeping like a woman. But she shed no tear, she was stunned. "Don't. tell grandma," she whispered, after a moment, and then she turned and left me. I sat down mechanically to my writingdesk. The ink was fresh in the pen, and I had left off writing in the middle of an elaborate sentence. I had almost completed an essay upon the Philosophy of Dreams, and thought it my very masterpiece. I was ambitious of authorship, and expected soon to startle the literary world by suddenly rising in their midst, a star of the first magnitude. Then my soul shuddered with a new and awful pang. O, Lilly, Lilly! Mother was with her, the one pale and silent, the other smiling and gay. Lilly became subdued after the first glance at me, and she looked apprehensively from my stern face to mother. We have had sad news, heavy news," said mother, mournfully, in answer to her look; "Louis, tell Lilly; she ought to know about it." I told her, calmly as I could, and when I concluded, she threw herself into mother's arms, crying bitterly. Still there were no tears in the eyes of her so deeply My seat was by the window, where I could look out upon a fair landscape, brightening beneath the magnetic influence of spring-time. I had been writing with a heart all in tune with the harmonies of nature, and my soul seemed half wounded. I did not like the expression inspired. Now all was changed. I was rudely awakened from my dreaming, my fine-spun theories were snapped asunder, and a shameful reality rose like a spectre before me. My blood was at boiling heat, my heart still pulsated with agony and resentment, yet with outward calmness, and slow motions, I gathered the scattered sheets of manuscript together, and placed them inside the desk, with pen and ink. So dies the vision of Fame," I said, inly; "I have better work to do." I opened and shut my hand,. gazing darkly upon it. It was smooth, and soft, I thought, but it must learn to bear a stronger weapon than the pen. One who had been my brother, was fighting against his country, I must fight for it. I felt a great, strong resolve nerving my whole being. I hardly knew myself. I turned instinctively to look in the mirror, and saw a new expression of firmness and determination upon my face. Latent will and energy seemed suddenly to have sprung to life. I had mourned and prayed for my country. I had trembled at her fearful peril, but the thought of enlisting to defend her had never entered my mind. There were few soldierly elements within me. But now! I was called upon in a voice I could not misunderstand. It were weak, dastardly, for me to tarry idly at home, now. At that moment I heard approaching footsteps, and the bird-like voice of Lilly. of her face, and knowing her somewhat peculiar nature, I felt that her heart was blee ting in silent agony. Her mother's love had received a cruel thrust, her woman's pride and lofty sense of honor, a dreadful blow. I, only, could lighten the insupportable burden. Mother," I hastened to say, "I will go to the war, and may this right arm do as much for my country, as Fred's shall do against it. I cannot proudly enlist, as others are doing, and as I might have done yesterday, but I must go to atone for Fred's disloyalty. I have locked up my pen, and I will take the gun in its place, never to lay it down until victory is ours." Her fixed features relaxed, and she burst forth into an agony of tears. I took her hand tenderly and respectfully, and begged her to be calm. Dear mother, do not weep; though you are bowed with shame now, I will make you a proud mother yet. All your teachings have not been lost upon me. I will fight, and if need be, die, for our country, and thus wipe out the stain from the name which Fred has dishonored." "Will you give up your hopes and plans, and leave us all, for the awful scenes of war?" "I will, mother; you do not bid me stay?" - "No, no. God bless you, my noble boy! Go! but oh, 'tis hard to send you forth thus my only son! for, though it breaks my heart to say it, I will not own as a son, he who is armed against his government!" We never told grandmother. She was saved the pain of knowing why I enlisted. She wondered greatly at it, and shed many tears, for I was her favorite grandson. It was a bad sign, too, to put the wedding off, she said, and she might die, and never see Lilly my bride. If the country needed the sacrifice, why did not Fred enlist? he was strong and brave, and would make a far better soldier than I possibly could. Then when she found that I would go, she bade me, with tears shining in her faded eyes, to fight in the right spirit. To have no revenge in my heart, but to fight because it was my duty, and for the good that might come of it. As I listened to the talk of that Christian woman, somewhat broken, it is true, for grandmother was very old, now, I felt the bitter resentment against the armed traitors at the South, die out of my heart. They were traitors, still, and not the less guilty in my eyes, but I pitied them, and grieved over the woe and ruin their temerity would cause. My boyish patriotism was strengthened and matured, and I felt that the country must be saved let the price be ever so dear. And I realized, as I did not at first, that something higher than passionate impulse must nerve the patriot soldier, and that he might be a Christian and a soldier, too. Mother and Lilly were very busy sewing for the volunteer. My Lilly had been engaged upon a pleasanter work, which brought warm blushes to her cheek and a brilliant light to her eye. But, without a word, she put the bridal preparations all away, and if she wept and suffered in doing so, she never told me, but cheered me with her kindest, most hopeful thoughts. I began to think, like a blind, selfish boy as I was, that she did not care so very much. If she loved me truly, would she be so calm, and never once ask me, for her sake, to stay? But that last night at home, I read her true heart better. I sat in her little parlor, (her mother's cottage was close by our old homestead) until after the midnight hour. I ought to have said "good-bye" long before, but could not. She was calm even at the last moment, though her face was white as the snowy muslin which she wore. She returned my kisses, (she never had done so before,) and I left her with a murmured blessing. I lingered at the gate, and turned to look back through the double, open window. Lilly stood just where I had left her. Her head was bowed upon her han ls, her slight form was swayed convulsively, and her sobs of anguish smote my ear. I was about to rush back and clasp her in my arms, when she fell upon her knees, and lifting both hands to heaven, called upon God to help her. I paused. God would help her, I could not; and then, with my heart melted within me, I turned and bent my steps homeward. I found my mother waiting for me; that first, last, best earthly friend. I had but a few moments to be with her, for I was expected to be in camp by the dawn of day. She had prepared a little feast for me, which I could not eat, and crammed my knapsack with loathsome dainties. As she held my hands in hers, and said her parting words of love and counsel, never had she seemed so dear and noble to me. I told her not to fear for me, and that while life and strength were mine, I would be brave and true. And if I should die in battle, it would be a glorious death, far better than a cowardly, selfish life. I saw her great effort, as she struggled for composure. "Louis," she said, low and hesitatingly, "if you should meet your brother?" Concluded in next Number. Editor's Table. Autumn has come. "The melancholy days never be full? For how many days, and are at the door. October with her sober smile weeks, and months, yet to come must the long flaunts her gorgeous banners on the air, list of the dead and wounded and prisoners odorous of the first breath of decay, and the glut the daily journals? Will the time never low winds wail through the woods, giving come again when a "Bardell Murder" or a audible monitions of the coming of dreary Cunningham bogus-baby" will furnish all winter. It is a season to lead our thoughts to the ingredients for a three months' excitement? other things; to the far off fields where many Now who cares for a murder, or would think that we shall see no more sleep, covered with even a" bogus-baby case "worth a square inch the drapery of autumn, but stained and torn space on the advertising page of the poorest and trampled with the feet of contending paper? Ten thousands now fill the space not armies, their sleeping places never to be visited long ago devoted to the one. Everything has or known by the weepers at home. We have grown to magnificent size, and done on a maghad great and wonderful battles, and the news- nificent scale. Here I see before me that a cerpapers chronicle victories, and it is something tain railroad is blocked with "ten miles of to know if our sons and brothers fall, it is trains," and our armies are now counted by with the shouts of" victory! victory!" ring- millions. Our war expenses are cooly spoken ing in their ears. O, this dreadful war. Yet of as being two millions per day! Truly we it has its redeeming points. What heroes it is are a grand people. May we only not turn developing! and what heroines! What Chris-out like the bullfrog that began to swell to the tians it is making! Before me, in the accoum of the battle of the 17th I read, "The inhabitants of all these villages" mentioning four or five," are laboring night and day to relieve the dying and the suffering. A more Christian people, in the practical significance of that word, I never saw. Every private dwelling is filled with the wounded. Carpets are torn up, costly furniture removed and comfortable mattresses spread upon the floor awaiting the arrival of the ambulances. And much of this preparation for the wounded is without one word from the Medical Directors in regard to size of an ox. But I will say no more on the subject of war unless I am irresistibly drawn to it. I have something to say of every day life. That we have many heroes and heroines in every day life, is I hope, no mystery to my readers. The misfortune under which they suffer is that they have no Homer to sing their story or tell the world of their noble aims and brave deeds. Too poor, and acting in a sphere too humble, to attract the public notice, their generous spirit of self-sacrifice and their beautiful lives pass without a chronicler, and are almost unknown or quite unrecognized by their nearest neighbors. In reading our great daily newspapers one is almost tempted to believe in the old theological absurdity of original sin and total depravity. It seems as if every man we hear of is a villian, and that virtue and goodness have fled from the world. It would be well to remember that the newspapers generally make no mention of the thousand acts of kindness, the deeds of love and truth with which the earth is filled. What would the world think, were the noble actions of every day to be recorded in the morning papers, and the story of unrepining patience under suffering, or of earnest devotion to truth and duty, to find an utterance from lip to lip, as men now speak of a burglary or a murder? Human life would seem a more beautiful and a worthier thing. Bridget, the older sister. She came, and added another hand to earn and save. Presently another ticket was purchased, and Michael crossed the ocean. Then in regular order came Mary and Lizzie and John and Dan and Kathleen and James, till finally one fine day in early summer came the father and mother with the rest of the children. "Ould Ireland was To this end I wish to record a brief account abandoned by the whole family of Donnelleys, of a poor Irish girl, KATE DONNELLY. Kate's father was as poor as Irish peasants generally are. He had little learning and less money, but he was rich in children, of which there seemed to be no end. Katie was the third of a long series, a brother and sister having preceded her. She was no beauty. As she grew up she was tall and gaunt, with carroty hair and teeth set in rare disorder and overlapping each other, Still, her eyes were bright and clear, and there was a singular honesty and good nature beaming from her homely face. But Katie was not wanting in sterling virtue. She was blessed with good practical sense, and possessed an energy and force of character that fitted her for a heroine. When about sixteen years of age she resolved to go over to England and become a servant. She easily gained the consent of her parents, and a few days after found her in the family of a Liverpool shopkeeper. Here she remained several months, till her wages were sufficient to make her a comfortable outfit and pay her passage to America. Arriving in New York, she soon found her way into the central part of the State, and secured a place as maid of all work in a respectable family. Her good nature, her willingness to learn, her anxiety to please, united to her practical common sense, her industry and faithfulness, gradually won the confidence of her employers and fixed her in place. Here she remained several years. Instead of wasting her wages on finery, as many poor girls do, she carefully saved what was not absolutely necessary to her slender wardrobe, till she had accumulated enough to secure the passage of a brother from the old to the new world. A few months after, Patrick, her eldest brother, appeared one Spring morning at her kitchen door and was welcomed with a warmth and cordiality that would have done honor to a princess. Pat soon found employment at fair wages, and it was not many months before the two together had made up a sum sufficient to secure a passage ticket for and the United States had a larger population, by a dozen or more, and was enriched by as many pairs of stout hands. Kattie is now married, and is rearing a family of her own. Her husband is an industrious, thriving man, from Ireland, as well as herself, and their little home is made comfortable by her toil and care. The pig is growing in the sty, the poultry yard yields eggs and chickens in abundance, while the cow, carefully wisped, brings home a generous pail of milk which Katie well knows how to use, and make a constant source of domestic comforts and in come. Often I meet her upon the street as she goes to and from the village in the management of her little household affairs, and as often as I see her my heart blesses her, for her goodness and worth; for the fortunes of a family that she has changed, and the happiness that she has wrought out. Yet she is quite unconscious of any rare merit, and looks upon her unselfish life as the performance of a simple duty. But I call Katie a true heroine of every day life, and doubt not her worth will be acknowledged in that day when the Lord shall make up his jewels, Having spoken of the heroine of every day life, leads me to say a word for the HEROINES OF THE WAR. And their name is legion. In every nook and corner of all this great, beautiful North, works and waits, and hopes, and fears and prays through all, some heroine of the warsome great, noble hearted mother who has sent her all into the field to fight their country's battles; some wife of a day, who, loving her husband well and truly, loves her country more, and therefore bade him leave her for that country's sake; some bethrothed one, who, mourning for her fallen hero, sews hospital clothing from morn till eve, and per chance, "from eve till dewy morn," and with every stitch sews in a blessing for him who shall wear her offerings, hallowing the memory of her lost one by the sublimest self-abnegation and the most devoted labors for the cause for |