ult
being the masterly retreat of the Federals across the Rappahannock to
the old battle-ground of Bull Run, where they made a protracted halt.

From this time until the fifteenth of October, nothing of sufficient
importance transpired to require mention here. Upon that day an
indecisive battle was fought at Bristoe Station, which was followed by
another calm that continued until the nineteenth of October--a black day
in the calendar of Willard Glazier's life.

Far away among the peaceful hills of his native State there fell upon
his father's house a sorrow such as its inmates had never known before.
Not that this family had escaped the ordinary bereavements of human
life. On the contrary, two little children had been taken from them at
intervals of time which seemed to them cruelly brief. But the death of
an infant, while a sad, is a beautiful thing to witness. There is no
flower that blooms on a baby grave that does not speak to the world-worn
heart, of _Immortality_. The grief, therefore, is gentle in its touch.
But with the ebb of a maturer life the sorrow is of a different
character, and when the physician announced to this worthy couple that
their daughter, Elvira, would die, they were stunned by the blow, and
when the event came "they refused" like Rachel "to be comforted." The
child that is going from us is, for the time, the favorite, and these
afflicted parents could not realize that she who had grown up among
them, the ewe lamb of their flock, could be torn from their loving arms,
and go down, like coarser clay, to the dark grave. She was so good, so
gentle, so loving to her kindred, that their simple hearts could not
understand how God could let her die, in the very bloom and beauty of
her maidenhood. But though crushed, they bowed their heads in
submission. Their hearts were almost broken, but they rebelled not
against the Hand that chastened them. Why is it that such examples of
tender feeling and unquestioning faith are seldom found in cities? Is it
that "the memories which peaceful country scenes call up, are not of
this world; nor of _its_ thoughts and hopes?" That "their gentle
influences teach us how to weave fresh garlands for the graves of those
we love, purify our thoughts, and beat down old enmities and hatreds?"
And that "beneath all this there lingers in the least reflective mind,
a vague and half-formed consciousness of having held such feelings long
before, which calls up solemn thoughts of d