de of the Union.

"I wish you could hear Bob tell the story, the funny part, I mean,"
she continued, narrating, as well as she could, the particulars of
Lieutenant Bob's meeting with Aunt Betsy, who, as the story progressed
and she recognized herself in the queer old Yankee woman, who shook
hands with the conductor and was going to law about a sheep pasture,
dropped her head lower and lower over her pan of peaches, while a
scarlet flush spread itself all over her thin face, but changed into a
grayish white as Bell concluded with "Bob says the memory of that hand
lifted above his head haunted him day and night, during the period of
his uncertainty, and was at last the means of saving him from treachery
to his country."

"Thank God!" came involuntarily from Aunt Betsy's quivering lips, and,
looking up, Bell saw the great tears running down her cheeks, tears
which she wiped away with her arm, while she said faintly: "That old
woman, who made a fool of herself in the cars, was me!"

"You, Miss Barlow, you!" Bell exclaimed, forgetting in her astonishment
to carry to her mouth the luscious half peach she had intended for that
purpose, and dropping it untasted into the pan, while Katy, who had been
listening with some considerable interest, came quickly forward, saying:
"You, Aunt Betsy! When were you in New York, and why did I never know
it?"

It could not be kept back, and, unmindful of Bell, Helen explained to
Katy as well as she could the circumstances of Aunt Betsy's visit to New
York the previous winter.

"And she never let me know it, or come to see me, because--because--"
Katy hesitated, and looked at Bell, who said, pertly: "Because Will is
so abominably proud, and would have made such a fuss. Don't spoil a
story for relations' sake, I beg," and the young lady laughed good
humoredly, restoring peace to all save Katy, whose face wore a troubled
look, and who soon stole away to her mother, whom she questioned further
with regard to a circumstance which seemed so mysterious to her.

"Miss Barlow," Bell said, when Katy was gone, "you will forgive one for
repeating that story as I did. Of course I had no idea it was you of
whom I was talking."

Bell was very earnest, and her eyes looked pleadingly upon Aunt Betsy,
who answered her back: "There's nothing to forgive. You only told the
truth. I did make an old fool of myself, but if I helped that boy to a
right decision, my journey did some good, and I ain't sorry now