tion; to
think of Mercedes, of seeing her, of making her happy yet. For she was
still a young girl, to him.

The thirteenth year came. Jamie had begun to take notice of the world.
He took regularly a New Orleans newspaper. The balance against him in
the account was now so small! He looked wistfully at the page. However
small the deficit, his labors were not complete till he could tear the
whole page out. And he could not do that yet: the transaction must be
shown upon the books; he might die.

Die! Suddenly his heart beat at the thought. Die! He had never
thought of this, to fear it; but now if he should die before the gold
was all returned, and all his sacrifice go for naught, even his
sacrifice of Mercedes--

The other clerks had lost their interest in poor Jamie by this time;
some of them were new, and to these he was merely an old miser, and
they made fun of him, he grew so careful about his health. Life had
not brought much to poor Jamie to make him so fond of it; but both the
Bowdoins noticed it, and remarked to one another, it was curious,
after all, how men clung to life as they grew older.

In 1859 a rumor had reached them all that St. Clair had gone on some
filibustering expedition to Cuba. Old Mr. Bowdoin mentioned it to
McMurtagh; but he said nothing of sending for the wife. In 1861 the
war broke out, and the poor clerk saw the one sober crown of his life
put off still a year. He was yet more than a thousand dollars short.
He was coming back on a Sound steamer, thinking of this, wondering how
he could bear this last delay,--his scanty bag of high-priced gold
crowded into a pocket,--reading his New Orleans paper carelessly (save
only the births and deaths), when his eye caught a name. Jamie knew
there was a war; and the article was all about some fighting of
blockade-runners with a federal cruiser near Mobile. But his quick eye
traveled to the centre of it, where he read, "Before the vessel was
taken, a round shot killed several of the crew, ... among them ... and
David St. Clair, well known in this city."

VIII.

Jamie could not go to bed that night, but sat on deck watching the
stars. The next day he went through his avocations in the bank like
one in a dream. And in the night ensuing that dream became a vision;
and he saw Mercedes alone in a distant city, without money or friends,
her soft eyes looking wistfully at him in wonder that he did not come.

The next morning Jamie went to old Mr.