would be a presumptuous fool, indeed, if I thought that for a day I could discharge the duties of this great office without the aid of One who is wiser and stronger than all others."

"You'll need the help of Almighty God in the course you've mapped out!"

"Some ships come into port that are not steered," went on the dreamy voice. "Suppose Pickett had charged one hour earlier at Gettysburg? Suppose the Monitor had arrived one hour later at Hampton Roads? I had a dream last night that always presages great events. I saw a white ship passing swiftly under full sail. I have often seen her before. I have never known her port of entry or her destination, but I have always known her Pilot!"

The cynic's lips curled with scorn. He leaned heavily on his cane, and took a shambling step toward the door. "You refuse to heed the wishes of Congress?"

"If your words voice them, yes. Force your scheme of revenge on the South, and you sow the wind to reap the whirlwind."

"Indeed! and from what secret cave will this whirlwind come?"

"The despair of a mighty race of world-conquering men, even in defeat, is still a force that statesmen reckon with."

"I defy them," growled the old Commoner.

Again the dreamy look returned to Lincoln's face, and he spoke as if repeating a message of the soul caught in the clouds in an hour of transfiguration:

"Can't do it, M'um. It's agin the rules."

"But I must go in. I've tramped for four days through a wilderness of hospitals, and I know he must be here." "Special orders, M'um-wounded rebels in here that belong in prison."

"Very well, young man," said the pleading voice. "My baby boy's in this place, wounded and about to die. I'm going in there. You can shoot me if you like, or you can turn your head the other way.'

She stepped quickly past the soldier, who merely stared with dim eyes out the door and saw nothing.

She stood for a moment with a look of helpless bewilderment. The vast area of the second story of the great monolithic pile was crowded with rows of sick, wounded, and dying men—a strange, solemn, and curious sight. Against the walls were ponderous glass cases, filled with models of every kind of invention the genius of man had dreamed. Between these cases were deep lateral openings, eight feet wide, crowded with the sick, and long rows of them were stretched through the centre of the hall. A gallery ran around above the cases, and this was filled with cots. The clatter of the feet of passing surgeons and nurses over the marble floor added to the weird impression.

Elsie saw the look of helpless appeal in the mother's face and hurried forward to meet her:

"Is this Mrs. Cameron, of South Carolina?"

The trembling figure in black grasped her hand eagerly: "Yes, yes, my dear, and I'm looking for my boy, who is wounded unto death. Can you help me?"

shall strive to finish the work we are in, and bind up the Nation's wounds."

"I've given you fair warning," cried the old Commoner, trembling with rage, as he hobbled nearer the door. "From this hour your administration is doomed."

"Stoneman," said the kindly voice, "I can't tell you how your venomous philanthropy sickens me. You have misunderstood and abused me at every step during the past four years. I bear you no ill will. If I have said anything to-day to hurt your feelings, forgive me. The earnestness with which you pressed the war was an invaluable service to me and to the Nation. I'd rather work with you than fight you. But now that we have to fight, I'd as well tell you I'm not afraid of you. I'll suffer my right arm to be severed from my body before I'll sign one measure of ignoble revenge on a brave, fallen foe, and I'll keep up this fight until I win, die, or my country forsakes me."

"I have always known you had a sneaking admiration for the South," came the sullen sneer.

"I love the South! It is a part of this Union. I love every foot of its soil, every hill and valley, mountain, lake, and sea, and every man, woman, and child that breathes beneath its skies. I am an American."

As the burning words leaped from the heart of the President, the broad shoulders of his tall form lifted, and his massive head rose in unconscious heroic pose.

"I marvel that you ever made war upon your loved ones!" cried the cynic.

"We fought the South became we loved her and would

not let her go. Now that she is crushed and lies bleeding at our feet-you shall not make war on the wounded, the dying, and the dead!"

Again the lion gleamed in the calm gray eyes.

E

CHAPTER V

THE BATTLE OF LOVE

LSIE carried Ben Cameron's pardon to the anxious

mother and sister with her mind in a tumult.

The name on these fateful papers fascinated her. She read it again and again with a curious personal joy that she had saved a life!

She had entered on her work among the hospitals a bitter partisan of her father's school, with the simple idea that all Southerners were savage brutes. Yet as she had seen the wounded boys from the South among the men in blue, more and more she had forgotten the difference between them. They were so young, these slender, dark-haired ones from Dixie-so pitifully young! Some of them were only fifteen, and hundreds not over sixteen. A lad of fourteen she had kissed one day in sheer agony of pity for his loneliness.

The part her father was playing in the drama on which Ben Cameron's life had hung puzzled her. Was his the mysterious arm back of Stanton? Echoes of the fierce struggle with the President had floated through the halfopen door.

She had implicit faith in her father's patriotism and pride in his giant intellect. She knew that he was a king among men by divine right of inherent power. His sen