d understand, that other; she had thought of his mother
in the stress of her own strongest feeling; she had loved him for
himself, not for vanity. This letter was hers, the mother knew it. And
yet the envelope, with the other address, had lain just under it, and
she had been his promised wife. She could not face her boy in heaven if
this last earthly wish of his should go wrong through her. How could she
read the boy's mind now? What was right to do?

The twilight fell over Crow Nest, and over the river and the heaped-up
mountains that lie about West Point, and in the quiet room the boy's
mother sat perplexed, uncertain, his letter in her hands; yet with a
vague sense of coming comfort in her heart as she thought of the girl
who would surely "find her and be good to her," But across the water, on
the hillside, the boy lay quiet.

A MESSENGER

How oft do they their silver bowers leave,
To come to succour us that succour want!
How oft do they with golden pineons cleave
The flitting skyes, like flying Pursuivant,
Against fowle feendes to ayd us militant!
They for us fight, they watch and dewly ward,
And their bright Squadrons round about us plant;
And all for love, and nothing for reward.
O! Why should heavenly God to men have such
regard?

--_Spenser's "Faerie Queene."_

That the other world of our hope rests on no distant, shining star, but
lies about us as an atmosphere, unseen yet near, is the belief of many.
The veil of material life shades earthly eyes, they say, from the
glories in which we ever are. But sometimes when the veil wears thin in
mortal stress, or is caught away by a rushing, mighty wind of
inspiration, the trembling human soul, so bared, so purified, may look
down unimagined heavenly vistas, and messengers may steal across the
shifting boundary, breathing hope and the air of a brighter world. And
of him who speaks his vision, men say "He is mad," or "He has dreamed."

* * * * *

The group of officers in the tent was silent for a long half minute
after Colonel Wilson's voice had stopped. Then the General spoke.

"There is but one thing to do," he said. "We must get word to Captain
Thornton at once."

The Colonel thought deeply a moment, and glanced at the orderly outside
the tent. "Flannigan!" The man, wheeling swiftly, saluted. "Present my
compliments to Lieutenant Morgan and say that I should like to see h