, divined something, and obliged us to tell her.

She said: "I knew it would come, I have felt it for years, and when the
cruel sacrifice is finished, liberty will arise, and over the ashes of
the slain will say, 'Let the bond go free.'"

Ben's eyes looked as Hal's did, when he left us for Chicago, and he
whispered to me:

"I must go. Hal must stay here; Louis cannot go. John will see to every
thing for me, and I am going."

Six days later he had enlisted, and oh! how filled these days were! When
Matthias heard of it, he came over, and happening to meet me where he
could talk freely, he said:

"Dis is jes' what I knowed was a comin', an' I have tole Ben fur to kill
dat Mas'r Sumner, de fus' ting, for he's the one dat ort fur to be
killed."

"Why, Matthias, you are in a great hurry to kill him, and you really
believe he is to drop right into that terrible fire; why, I could not
hurry a dog out of existence if I thought everlasting torment awaited
him."

"Look a yere, Miss Em'ly, ef dat dog wuz mad, you'd kill him mighty
quick, wouldn't ye?"

I did not know what to say, and he answered the question himself:

"Yas, de Lord knows, dat man needs tendin' to, an I'se mighty anxious
fur de good Lord to take him in han'. We'll live to see ebery black man
free, Miss Em'ly,--we shall, shure,--an' dere'll be high times down in
Charleston. Wonder what little Molly'll do?"

"I have been thinking about her," I said. "You know the last letter we
received they were fearful of war, and thinking of coming to her
husband's friends in Pennsylvania; but she feared her mother would die;
she has been poorly for a long time."

"Reckin she'll die, then, fur de 'sitement'll kill her, ef nuffin else
don't."

The days wore on and Clara still lingered with us. Ben was as yet
unhurt, and first lieutenant of his company. He wrote us that battle was
not what he had thought it; he was not shaky at all, and the smell of
powder covered every fear; he had only one thought and that was to do
his duty. A letter full of sorrow came from Mary. Her mother had passed
from earth, and her father was going on to a little farm they owned a
few miles from the city, and she, with her husband and Althea Emily was,
trying to get into Pennsylvania. "I am in momentary fear," she wrote,
"for my husband is watched so closely, his principles are so well known,
I think we shall have great trouble in getting through, but we cannot
stay here."

The dewy breath