you please," said Robert. He knew the disappointment that awaited
his friend, but he would not thwart him now.

There was a great crowd about the polling-office, and they all looked on
with curious interest as the two young men came up. No demonstration was
made, though a half-dozen brutal fellows uttered some coarse remarks.

"Hear the damned Rebs talk!" said a man in the army blue, who, with keen
eyes, was observing the scene. "They're the same sort of stuff we licked
in Carolina."

"Ay," said another, "but with a difference; blue led there; but gray'll
come off winner here, or I'm mistaken."

Robert stood leaning upon his cane; a support which he would need for
life, one empty sleeve pinned across his breast, over the scar from a
deep and yet unhealed wound. The clear October sun shone down upon his
form and face, upon the broad folds of the flag that waved in triumph
above him, upon a country where wars and rumors of wars had ceased.

"Courage, man! what ails you?" whispered Russell, as he felt his comrade
tremble; "it's a ballot in place of a bayonet, and all for the same
cause; lay it down."

Robert put out his hand.

"Challenge the vote!" "Challenge the vote!" "No niggers here!" sounded
from all sides.

The bit of paper which Ercildoune had placed on the window-ledge
fluttered to the ground on the outer side, and, looking at Tom, Robert
said quietly, "1860 or 1865?--is the war ended?"

"No!" answered Tom, taking his arm, and walking away. "No, my friend! so
you and I will continue in the service."

"Not ended;--it is true! how and when will it be closed?"

"That is for the loyal people of America to decide," said Russell, as
they turned their faces towards home.

How and when will it be closed? a question asked by the living and the
dead,--to which America must respond.

Among the living is a vast army: black and white,--shattered and maimed,
and blind: and these say, "Here we stand, shattered and maimed, that the
body politic might be perfect! blind forever, that the glorious sun of
liberty might shine abroad throughout the land, for all people, through
all coming time."

And the dead speak too. From their crowded graves come voices of
thrilling and persistent pathos, whispering, "Finish the work that has
fallen from our nerveless hands. Let no weight of tyranny, nor taint of
oppression, nor stain of wrong, cumber the soil nor darken the land we
died to save."

NOTE

Since it is imp