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There, there, dear, don't," she soothingly said, “you will grow to be a brave strong man. You will fight this battle out, and win back our home and bring your own bride here in the far away days of sunshine and success I see for you. She will love you, and the flowers will blossom on the lawn again. But I am tired. Kiss me-I must go."

Her heart fluttered on for a while, but she never spoke again.

At ten o'clock Mrs. Durham tenderly lifted the boy from the bedside, kissed him, and said as she led him to his room,

She's done with suffering, Charlie. You are going to live with me now, and let me love you and be your mother."

The Preacher had made a profound impression on his Boston congregation.

They were charmed by his simple direct appeal to the heart. His fiery emphasis, impassioned dogmatic faith, his tenderness and the strange pathos of his voice swept them off their feet. At night the big church was crowded to the doors, and throngs were struggling in vain to gain admittance. At the close of the services he was overwhelmed with the expressions of gratitude and heartfelt sympathy with which they thanked him for his messages.

He was feasted and dined and taken out into the parks behind spanking teams, until his head was dizzy with the unaccustomed whirl.

The Preacher went through it all with a heavy heart. Those beautiful homes with their rich carpets, handsome furniture, and those long lines of beautiful carriages in the parks, made a contrast with the agony of universal ruin which he left at home that crushed his soul.

He hastened to tell the story of Mrs. Gaston to a genial old merchant who had taken a great fancy to him.

A tear glistened in the old man's eye as he quickly rose. "Come right down to my store. I'll get you a money order before the post-office closes. I've got tickets for you to go to the Coliseum with me to-night and hear the music!-the great Peace Jubilee. We are celebrating the return of peace and prosperity, and the preservation of the Union. It's the greatest musical festival the world ever saw."

The Preacher was dazed with the sense of its sublimity and the pathetic tragedy of the South that lay back of its joy.

The great Coliseum, constructed for the purpose, seated over forty thousand people. Such a crowd he had never seen gathered together within one building. The soul of the orator in him leaped with divine power as he glanced over the swaying ocean of human faces. There were twelve thousand trained voices in the chorus. He had dreamed of such music in Heaven when countless hosts of angels should gather around God's throne. He had never expected to hear it on this earth. He was transported with a rapture that thrilled and lifted him. above the consciousness of time and sense.

They rendered the masterpieces of all the ages. The music continued hour after hour, day after day, and night after night.

The grand chorus within the Coliseum was accompanied by the ringing of bells in the city, and the firing of cannon on the common, discharged in perfect time with the melody that rolled upward from those twelve thousand voices and broke against the gates of Heaven! When every voice was in full cry, and every instrument of music that man had ever devised, throbbed in harmony, and a hundred anvils were ringing a chorus of

steel in perfect time, Parepa Rosa stepped forward on the great stage, and in a voice that rang its splendid note of triumph over all like the trumpet of the archangel, sang the Star Spangled Banner!

Men and women fainted, and one woman died, unable to endure the strain. The Preacher turned his head away and looked out of the window. A soft wind was blowing from the South. On its wings were borne to his heart the cry of the widow and orphan, the hungry and the dying still being trampled to death by a war more terrible than the first, because it was waged against the unarmed, women and children, the wounded, the starving and the defenceless! He tried in vain to keep back the tears. Bending low, he put his face in his hands and cried like a child.

"God forgive them! They know not what they do!" he moaned.

The kindly old man by his side said nothing, supposing he was overcome by the grandeur of the music.

W

CHAPTER XIX

THE RALLY OF THE CLANSMEN

HEN the Preacher took the train in Boston for the South, his friendly merchant, a deacon, was by his side.

Now, you put my name and address down in your note book, William Crane. And don't forget about us." I'll never forget you, deacon."

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Say, I just as well tell you," whispered the deacon bending close, "we are not going to allow you to stay down South. We'll be down after you before longjust as well be packing up!"

The Preacher smiled, looked out of the car window, and made no reply.

"Well, good-bye, Doctor, good-bye. God bless you and your work and your people! You've brought me a message warm from God's heart. I'll never forget it."

As the train whirled southward through the rich populous towns and cities of the North, again the sharp contrast with the desolation of his own land cut him like a knife. He thought of Legree and Haley, Perkins and Tim Shelby robbing widows and orphans and sweeping the poverty-stricken Southland with riot, pillage, murder and brigandage, and posing as the representatives of the conscience of the North. And his heart was heavy with

sorrow.

On reaching Hambright he was thunderstruck at the

news of the sale of Mrs. Gaston's place and her tragic death.

'Why, my dear, I sent the money to her on the first Monday I spent in Boston!" he declared to his wife. "It never reached her."

Then Dave Haley, the dirty slave driver, has held that letter. I'll see to this." He hurried to the postoffice.

"Mr. Haley," he exclaimed, "I sent a money order letter to Mrs. Gaston from Boston on Monday a week ago."

"Yes, sir," answered Haley in his blandest manner, "it got here the day after the sale."

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You're an infamous liar!" shouted the Preacher. "Of course! Of course! All Union men are liars to hear rebel traitors talk."

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'I'll report you to Washington for this rascality."

So do, so do. Mor'n likely the President and the Post-Office Department 'll be glad to have this information from so great a man."

As the Preacher was leaving the post-office he encountered the Hon. Tim Shelby dressed in the height of fashion, his silk hat shining in the sun, and his eyes rolling with the joy of living. The Preacher stepped squarely in front of Tim.

"Tim Shelby, I hear you have moved into Mrs. Gaston's home and are using her furniture. By whose authority do you dare such insolence?"

"By authority of the law, sir. Mrs. Gaston died intestate. Her effects are in the hands of our County Administrator, Mr. Ezra Perkins. I'll be pleased to receive you, sir, any time you would like to call!" said Tim with a bow.

"I'll call in due time," replied the Preacher, looking Tim straight in the eye.