ed off towards the road. "I'll see
ye ag'in, Miss Nancy, afore you start," said he, looking back and
nodding gayly at her. Things weren't so bad as they seemed about her, he
guessed. He was going home, and his heart was soft. Happiness is very
kind; but let it do its best it cannot come very near to misery.

Nancy stood and watched the young man as he went, commenting thus:
"Well, _he_'s made a good deal out of 'listing, any way." His pale face
and his hurt did not make him sacred in her sight.

She was speaking to herself, and not to her little daughter, who, when
she saw her mother talking to a soldier, ran up to hear the
conversation. A change that was wonderful to see had passed over the
child's face, when she heard that her father had been promoted from the
ranks. The bald fact, unilluminated by a single particular, seemed to
satisfy her. She hadn't a question to ask. Her first thought was to run
down to the village and tell Miss Ellen Holmes, who told _her_, not long
ago, so proud and wonderful a story about her brother's promotion.

If it were not for this Jenny, my story would be short. Is it not for
the future we live? For the children the world goes on.

Does this little girl--she might be styled a beauty by a true catholic
taste, but oh! I fear that the Boston Convention "ORTHODOX," lately
convened to settle all great questions concerning the past, present, and
future, would never recognize her, on any showing, as a babe of
grace!--does she, as she runs down the hill and along the crooked street
of Dalton, look anything like a messenger of Heaven to your eyes? Must,
the angels show their wings before they shall have recognition?

Going past the blacksmith's shop she was hailed by the blacksmith's
self, with the blacksmith's own authority. "See here, Jenny!" At the
call, she stood at bay like a fair little fawn in the woods.

"I'm writing a letter to my boy," he continued. "Step in here. Did you
know Ezra Cramer had come back?"

"I saw him just now," she answered. "He told us about father." She said
it with a pride that made her young face shine.

"So! what about him, I wonder?" asked the blacksmith.

And that he really did wonder, Jenny could not doubt. She heard more in
his words than she liked to hear, and answered with a tremulous voice,
in spite of pride, "O, he's been promoted."

"The deuse! what's _he_ permoted to?"

"I don't know," she said, and for the first time she wondered.

"Where is