He stood there bowing to the people, the
grandest, gentlest figure of the fiercest war of human history--a man who
was always doing merciful things stealthily as others do crimes. Little
sunlight had come into his life, yet to-night he felt that the sun of a
new day in his history and the history of the people was already tingeing
the horizon with glory.

Back of those smiles what a story! Many a night he had paced back and
forth in the telegraph office of the War Department, read its awful news
of defeat, and alone sat down and cried over the list of the dead. Many a
black hour his soul had seen when the honours of earth were forgotten and
his great heart throbbed on his sleeve. His character had grown so evenly
and silently with the burdens he had borne, working mighty deeds with such
little friction, he could not know, nor could the crowd to whom he bowed,
how deep into the core of the people's life the love of him had grown.

As he looked again over the surging crowd his tall figure seemed to
straighten, erect and buoyant, with the new dignity of conscious
triumphant leadership. He knew that he had come unto his own at last, and
his brain was teeming with dreams of mercy and healing.

The President resumed his seat, the tumult died away, and the play began
amid a low hum of whispered comment directed at the flag-draped box. The
actors struggled in vain to hold the attention of the audience, until
finally Hawk, the actor playing Dundreary, determined to catch their ear,
paused and said:

"Now, that reminds me of a little story, as Mr. Lincoln says----"

Instantly the crowd burst into a storm of applause, the President laughed,
leaned over and spoke to his wife, and the electric connection was made
between the stage, the box, and the people.

After this the play ran its smooth course, and the audience settled into
its accustomed humour of sympathetic attention.

In spite of the novelty of this, her first view of a theatre, the
President fascinated Margaret. She watched the changing lights and shadows
of his sensitive face with untiring interest, and the wonder of his life
grew upon her imagination. This man who was the idol of the North and yet
to her so purely Southern, who had come out of the West and yet was
greater than the West or the North, and yet always supremely human--this
man who sprang to his feet from the chair of State and bowed to a
sorrowing woman with the deference of a knight, every man's frien