the church was not only restored, but a magnificent spire added, and the whole dedicated in the presence of six bishops, six hundred ecclesiastics and a great multitude. The man's whole life was a constant alms-giving the ruisseau argentin that flowed into the barber-shop soon became a source that solaced innumerable miseries, genially kissing many a door-step on the way and leaving behind traces of its generous waters. Not often has genius been so consecrated by goodness; not often has goodness become so illustrious by genius.

J. A. H.

A STORY OF GETTYSBURG.

MIDST the sound of solemn music, the tramp of soldiery, the

banners of foreign nations hang at half-mast in the harbor, and thousands follow with reverent steps, the remains of the Gettysburg dead are borne to their last resting-place in the cemetery of the Confederate capital. Pavements, doors, windows, and house-tops are crowded with spectators. Old soldiers with the scars of Gettysburg upon them guard the relics of their comrades. Many are there whose hearts swell almost to bursting as they remember the friend or brother who fought and fell beside them on that never-to-be-forgotten day, when they recall the forms so full of life and hope and courage, of whom nothing is left now but the unconscious ashes they are assembled to honor. Many a sad heart beats too among the more distant spectators who look out upon the mournful procession, and remember how proudly and gallantly they marched forth who have thus returned to them. But their sorrow is so mingled with pride that half its bitterness is taken away. Virginia receives her sons again into the the care of her heart for ever. Truly they have come home again, hers through all time,- Virginia's first, but the world's also, for they are gathered into that magnificent temple where rest the heroic dead of every land and age. Nations keep guard around its doors; the reverence that encircles it is as wide as humanity, and on its altars are inscribed not less the names of those who have gloriously failed than of those who have gloriously succeeded.

In a lofty apartment near a window looking out upon the street sits a figure clothed in black, in a listless attitude, and with his face buried in his hands, taking apparently no note of what is passing without.

The only other occupant of the room is a young girl, who watches the procession as it passes with eager intentness, and a countenance expressive of deep and painful interest. "It is almost at the corner," she murmured, rather to herself than her companion: "it will be out of sight directly."

In an instant the bowed figure has risen and come forward to the window. He leans out, catches a glimpse of the waving banners and slow-moving multitude, and with an exclamation of pain turns away and sinks back into his seat. The girl started at the suddenness of his movements, and her youthful eyes followed him with a gaze of wonder. "I cannot," he said, as if in reply to her half-questioning glance, "I cannot bear it. I have but too bitter cause, my child, to remember Gettysburg."

Her face assumed an expression of appreciative sympathy, hardly to have been expected in so mere a child, and she continued for some moments to gaze in silence out of the window. At length she turned and said gravely:

"Brother, won't you tell me all about Gettysburg some time? I should so like to hear."

"Yes," he replied, with an evidently painful effort, "you ought to hear. I may as well talk of it, I can think of nothing else to-day. It may even be a relief." Then without further pause or preface, with the air of one who fears to think of what is before him lest his resolution fail, he plunged abruptly into the narrative.

"At the beginning of the war I entered the service, and was from the time of the organisation of the Army of Northern Virginia, as it was afterwards called, attached to the Virginia division. You, Laura, was, at the time I am speaking of, a little child whom I hardly knew. After our father's death your mother, as of course you are aware, took you with her to live with her own family in a different part of the State, and it has only been within the last few years, since her death, that we have seen much of each other. I had no other near relation except my younger brother. My mother had commended him to me as the object of her fondest hopes and deepest solicitude, almost with her last breath, and the tie between us was peculiarly close and strong. Ten years younger than myself, he was both brother and son to me. I had no one else in this world but him, and all the affection I had felt for my mother seemed to centre in him from the time of her death. He was made to be loved too, so brilliant, so attractive, so full of intellect and promise. He had no fault that my eyes could see. A mere boy when the war broke out, he had been anxious to enter the service at once, and as time went on he became more and more impatient of the restraint which had necessarily been imposed upon his wishes. As he grew older, even if I had thought it right to attempt to restrain him, any effort on my part would have been unavailing. Accordingly, early in the spring of '63 he joined the army. tered as a private; but such was the ascendancy of his character, and his knowledge of military details, acquired by eager study beforehand and close observation after his entrance into the army, that after a very short period of service he was, notwithstanding his youth, selected to fill the first vacancy in his company as lieutenant. He had

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that ambition and spirit of command so often found in connection with great powers and great energies. His was that lofty self-confidence which inspires others with confidence and even with enthusiastic admiration, and which never fails to vindicate itself when the test is applied. He was indeed the only man I ever knew who needed only iength of days and opportunity to have been great. Nor is this the mere dictate of partial affection. A similar impression was produced on all who knew him. He was the man whom all his acquaintances looked upon as certain to become distinguished. He took the first place instinctively, and it was yielded to him not only ungrudgingly, but, though the expression seems a strange one, even enthusiastically. His companions and himself seemed alike unconscious that there could be a doubt or a question in regard to it. It was his by the best and clearest of all titles. The opportunity of fully realising this promise was never to be given; and I am dwelling perhaps too long upon what does not immediately concern the story you have asked for. I go on at once to the opening of the Gettysburg campaign.

The march through the Valley and into Pennsylvania need not be dwelt upon, nor the combats and skirmishes preluding the great battle of the third of July. I come immediately to the night preceding the engagement.

I can never forget - few of the survivors are likely, I think, ever to forget the night before the battle; the two armies lay in front of each other, each measured its adversary, as it were, with its eye, each scanned the armor of the other to discover its weak point, and each rested for a moment on its arms and took breath ere they closed in mortal grapple. The 3d of July, 1863, came at length. How long, yet how short the night before! Measured by sensations, an age; by the short waking periods between snatches of slumber, scarcely an hour. Time enough however for us all to think of home and of each face dearest to us, of all the thousand associations that attach themselves in every man's mind to the spot that he first remembers, where, whether it were his birth-place or not, life first began for him; time enough too to think of the work that lay before us on the morrow, and to remember how much was staked upon the event.

The sun rose red and hot and glaring. It threw floods of golden splendor over the destined scene of bloodshed, and brought out into strong relief the minutest features of the landscape. I can see it now as it looked that morning, glittering in light, instinct with life, fair, peaceful and calm. By the evening it was drenched with blood, trampled under foot of hostile columns, torn by ball and shell, black, horrible, and polluted with the sights and sounds of war. The dead lay thick upon it then, the wounded writhed in agony. The thousand sounds of insect life were still, and instead were heard the varied and piercing tones of human anguish and despair. Enough of this. I can not dwell upon it let others if they can, who feel it less, at all events less bitterly and personally than I, describe this far-famed battle eloquently, elaborately, picturesquely. Let them do for it what the French writers have done for Austerlitz, for Wagram, for Waterloo In justice this must be done in time to come. However

even.

mournful and bitter may be the recollections connected with it, there is no prouder name upon our record. There is none upon which our children's children, Virginians to the latest generation, can look back with a more exultant feeling of patriotic pride. As long as the name of Virginia lasts, so long will the recollection of the charge at Gettysburg survive, and the hearts of true Virginians beat high and their cheeks flush as they recall the deeds of their countrymen on that immortal day. A defeat it has been called, and certainly the object of the battle was not accomplished; but assuredly the enemy gained no victory on that memorable 3d of July. Even if it had been a defeat, what then? So was Thermopyla. After all, the charge did not succeed, they say. Neither did the Six Hundred at Balaklava, nor the Old Guard at Waterloo. But I think that mankind would miss them if these glorious failures were stricken from the rolls of history. However, I am not writing the history of this battle. As I said just now, I cannot do it; even if there were no other reason, I could as soon minutely detail and moralise over the dying moments of my dearest friend. I lost many friends here, and one the dearest upon earth to

me.

The sun, as I have said, rose clear and bright, revealing the masses of Federal troops that covered Cemetery Range. The whole height was crowned with guns and lined with men; and then, as if nature had not made the position sufficiently strong, frowned line upon line of earthworks, behind which the defenders awaited the forlorn hope which was to assail them. This was the work before us, and we knew it knew it well as the long hours passed slowly by; and we stood still gazing on the tomb that invited, the fiery chasm that yawned for

us.

Oh those long weary hours of inaction, waiting, waiting, waiting! When would the death-knell sound? Oh for the rush, the hurrah, and the death-grapple! The thing was to be done: why delay it? If we could but scale those heights with comrades we could trust by our sides, and our country's foes in front! Then come what might, at least it would soon be over. Then there would be something to do, not this silent waiting and thinking; then there would be a glorious charge at any rate, with a soldier's death in the moment of victory to look forward to-or, who could tell? perhaps a return to Virginia with the right to tell her that her sons had striven to be not unworthy of her. But now imagination had free scope to depict all the horrible mangling, the long agony, the raging thirst of the wounded; and then the sensation of being trodden under foot, crushed by the iron hoof of a horse or the wheels of artillery, or even smothered beneath a mass of corpses. It was like sitting on one's coffin and gazing into one's empty grave, yet not a man faltered. There was no thought of anything but going forward and carrying the position. And there were found five thousand of them! As I stood looking at the heights and thinking how slowly the moments went, I felt a hand upon my shoulder, and turning, saw Graham standing beside me. "Well, old fellow," he said, following the direction of my eyes, "I see you are looking at our evening's work. I wish we could set about it."

I looked at him with an inexpressible yearning. So young, so bright, so full of life, with so much capacity for action and for enjoy

ment, with so much in store for him, as it seemed, could not he be spared? must he go too? What chance was there of escape for any who started on that deadly march? And still there was nothing for it. I knew that he must go like the rest. What I cared most for upon earth I could not, nay, I would not have withdrawn. He, too, was a Virginian. There was no help for it. And even at that moment there came across me the old feeling, that whatever the arena, upon whatever sphere his energies were called forth, his place must be still the foremost. The very idea of withdrawing him—him of all men - seemed unnatural and absurd. As I looked again at the heights, I hardly saw them quite so distinctly as before, but I only said in reply to his remark, "Yes, it is pretty rough work, but I think our men are up to it."

"They are in splendid trim," he said thoughtfully, "and will do the work, if it can be done."

I turned and looked at the line, ragged, barefooted, weather-beaten, but heroes for all that; and I could not help asking myself, how many would ever come back? The feeling that stirred within me at the thought can not be put in words. I could not dwell upon it. "Will it never be time?" I murmured impatiently as I looked at my watch. It was one o'clock. At that moment the report of a single cannon broke ominously on the ear. It was the signal gun. I grasped Graham's hand and wrung it. I had no words to utter. He smiled, but returned the pressure warmly, and we parted, each to his post. Our fire now opened in earnest, nor did the enemy fail to reply. The sun seemed literally to go out, the air was filled with shot and shell, with dust and smoke. Peal on peal came louder and louder until one report was lost in another, and on the almost deafened ear there remained no distinct impression but that of a long monotonous roar, which was caught up and sent back in answering echoes by the surrounding hills. The sky was darkened, the earth quivered, fiery missiles screamed and hissed through the smoke-laden atmosphere. The enemy had gotten the range of our position accurately. To suspense succeeded positive suffering, to passive waiting passive endurance, without the means or hope of resistance, so far at least as the infantry was concerned. Moment after moment went by and the horrible din seemed ever to increase. There was the most indescribable mingling of sounds, hissing, whistling, and screaming, tearing, crackling, and bursting. I despair of giving the faintest impression of it. There is nothing like it. No description can convey an idea of that terrific cannonade. I lost all sense of the passage of time. Would this never end? Were we to have no opportunity of striking a blow in return? Would we never rise from this horrible state of inaction and charge? Would not the order to move forward come soon? Such were the queries which I was inwardly putting to myself. Meanwhile I can distinctly remember that I asked and answered questions, that I smiled and jested with my comrades, that I changed my position to get an easier seat, and carefully adjusted the buckle on my cap. My eyes were constantly seeking Graham. Never was the most experienced veteran cooler; only I could see by the slight flush on his cheek and the light in his eye that he was longing for the signal to