ous red seal
newly broken, he watches her anxiously as she reads:

_Lieutenant Nathan Clark, U. S. Fifth Infantry_: You are
hereby appointed Assistant Commissary of Subsistence, and
will forthwith join your regiment at Detroit, which is under
orders to move to the Mississippi river and establish a
military post at the mouth of the St. Peters river.

With respect and esteem,

GEORGE GIBSON,
Com. Gen. of Subsistence.

Twice she reads this order, and then, looking up with a smile, says,
with a slight tremor in her voice: "Is this all, beloved? Why should
it so distress you? You surely do not flinch from duty?" With a
perceptible start at such a suggestion, the gallant young soldier
replies: "No, no, my precious wife; but this means separation from you
and our boy, for you cannot venture on so long and perilous a journey
as that, and our separation is not for days and months, it may be for
years; how can I endure it? And we were so happy here in our snug
little cottage--you in the midst of early friends and beloved
relatives, your childhood companions and associations all about you;
and I with my duties as recruiting officer. We had reason to hope and
expect at least a year longer of this life, and this sudden blasting
of our hopes seems cruel. Oh, Charlotte! how can you bear the
thought?" As he thus poured out his heart, her eyes regarded him with
wonder, and when he ceased she drew him to his favorite chair, and,
seating herself on a low stool beside him, took his hand in hers, and,
looking up at him through her tears, said with ineffable tenderness:
"My own dear husband; how could you for a moment imagine that this
order means separation? Could you believe that I would remain here in
comfort, and suffer you to go alone to that far-off region where, if
ever, you will need me to cheer and aid you? If my marriage vows mean
anything, they mean that I am not to forsake you at such a time as
this. What would the comforts of this dear home, what the society of
relatives and friends be to me, with you in a wild country, in the
midst of a savage people, deprived of almost everything that makes
life dear? No, no, my beloved; where thou goest I will go; thy people
shall be my people; entreat me not to leave thee, or to refrain from
following after thee, for naught but death shall part thee and me."

The young soldier took