es, darkened in
their beauty by the emotions of the hour, looked steadily down into the
mouths of the guns.

_Schillie._--"June, do you believe that the spirits of the departed know
what occurs on earth, and with unseen forms can visit those they love?"

_June._--"I hold some such doctrine, my Schillie, but whether there is
truth in it or not, the departed alone can tell."

_Schillie._--"I'll put faith in your doctrine, my mistress, and think
that in an hour I may behold my children, though unseen by them."

_June._--"And is it this feeling that makes you gaze so boldly into the
jaws that are so shortly to breathe forth death to us?"

_Schillie._--"It may be so, or it may be the strength given from on high
for such emergencies as these. In this awful hour I feel no fear; a
sacred calm is filling my heart. My God, I feel Thou art near; Thou
knowest this is not presumption that I bow me in humility before Thy
throne, that I approach it under the shadow of my Saviour's wing."

I gazed in her face, flushed with ardour, refulgent with her inspired
feelings, and thought her half way to heaven already.

_June._--"My Schillie, ere you go, take my thanks take my heartfelt
gratitude with you for all you have been to me."

_Schillie._--"We go together, June, we shall not be separated in the
happy pasture fields of our immortal shepherd. You will come with me to
gaze on my children, and whisper holy dreams of goodness and truth into
their childish ears to prepare them for the burdens of life, such as we
have gone through. Our fates in life were thrown together, and the last
act of mercy received from our gracious Father is this, that we die
together."

_June._--"But with my mortal lips and mortal heart receive my thanks,
for, without you, what should I have done? Without your brave heart and
good spirit to help me I must have given way. Without your hopeful,
strong, and Godly mind I, guilty of ungrateful murmurs, should have
forfeited the right of comfort from on high. Ah! my Schillie, take my
thanks, for next to my Father, Saviour, God in heaven, what do I not owe
to you?"

_Schillie._--"Enough, enough, we give and take in this world. Our
obligations to each other are mutual. We have an eternity before us to
settle the debt between us. Our time on earth draws to a close. It is
fit we prepare the young and weak for the fate they seem hardly to
realize."

_June._--"I shrink from them. Oh, my Schillie, do me a last act o