ns, choosing instead a slice of dry toast and a glass
of water.

"Are you sick, Horace?" asked his mother, tenderly.

"No, ma'am," replied the boy, blushing; "but I want to get to be a
soldier!"

Mr. Clifford and his wife looked at each other across the table, and
smiled.

"O, papa," said Grace, "I shouldn't want to be a soldier if I couldn't
have anything nice to eat. Can't they get pies and canned peaches and
things? Will they go without buckwheat cakes and sirup in the winter?"

"Ah! my little daughter, men who love their country are willing to make
greater sacrifices than merely nice food."

Horace put on one of his lofty looks, for he somehow felt that his
father was praising _him_.

"Pa," said Grace, "please tell me what's a sacrifice, anyhow?"

"A sacrifice, my daughter, is the giving up of a dear or pleasant thing
for the sake of duty: that is very nearly what it means. For instance,
if your mamma consents to let me go to the war, because she thinks I
ought to go, she will make what is called a sacrifice."

"Do not let us speak of it now, Henry," said Mrs. Clifford, looking
quite pale.

"O, my dear papa," cried Grace, bursting into tears, "we couldn't live
if you went to the war!"

Horace looked at the acorn on the lid of the coffee-urn, but said
nothing. It cost his little heart a pang even to think of parting from
his beloved father; but then wouldn't it be a glorious thing to hear him
called General Clifford? And if he should really go away, wasn't it
likely that the oldest boy, Horace, would take his place at the head of
the table?

Yes, they should miss papa terribly; but he would only stay away till he
"got a general;" and for that little while it would be pleasant for
Horace to sit in the arm-chair and help the others to the butter, the
toast, and the meat.

"Horace," said Mr. Clifford, smiling, "it will be some years before you
can be a soldier: why do you begin now to eat dry bread?"

"I want to get used to it, sir."

"That indeed!" said Mr. Clifford, with a good-natured laugh, which made
Horace wince a little. "But the eating of dry bread is only a small part
of the soldier's tough times, my boy. Soldiers have to sleep on the hard
ground, with knapsacks for pillows; they have to march, through wet and
dry, with heavy muskets, which make their arms ache."

"Look here, Barby," said Horace, that evening; "I want a knapsack, to
learn to be a soldier with. If I have 'tough times' now, I