ENCHANTED LOOKING-GLASS.

Things went on in this unsatisfactory way for a long time--so long, in
fact, that Hanson began to grow discouraged. And well he might, for with
all his scheming he had not been able to add a single scrap of
information to the first report he made to Colonel Shelby. The boy
Julius held manfully to his story--that Mrs. Gray was the best kind of a
Confederate, that she had no money except the dollar she carried in her
pocket-book--and the most cunningly worded cross-questioning could not
draw anything else from him. In process of time Fort _Sumter_ was fired
upon, Marcy Gray came home from school, and then the overseer rubbed his
hands joyously and told himself that he would soon know all about it.
Well, he didn't, but Julius did; and this was the way it came about.

In the ceiling of the dining-room, to which apartment the family usually
betook themselves when they had anything private to talk about, was a
stovepipe hole, communicating with a store-room on the floor above. It
happened that Julius was roaming about the house one day when Mrs. Gray
had company at dinner, and the sound of voices coming up through this
opening attracted his attention. He listened a moment, and found that he
could plainly hear every word that was uttered in the room below; but he
never would have thought of playing the part of eavesdropper if Hanson
had not told him that he was expected to do it. Believing that he could
add to his usefulness and better guard the interests of the family if he
knew more about its private affairs, Julius hastened to the store-room
the minute he saw Marcy and his mother going in to breakfast, and put
his ear directly over the open stovepipe hole, and heard some things
that made him tremble all over. There was money in the house after
all--thirty thousand dollars all in gold; it was hidden in the cellar
wall, and he could earn a nice little sum by carrying the news straight
to the overseer, as he had solemnly promised to do; but he never thought
of it. On the contrary he strove harder than ever to make Hanson believe
that there was not a dollar in the house beyond the one Mrs. Gray kept
in her pocket; because why, hadn't he heard her tell Marse Marcy so with
his own two ears? If the overseer did not say "money" during their
interviews, Julius did; but he did not dwell long enough on the subject
to arouse the man's suspicions. More than that, Julius was brave enough
to "take the bull by the