tis. Whether her boy was dead or alive he pay for you, mother. Ask Captain Snow about it. Goodcould not tell the mother. This was all. As the weeks dragged slowly by now, and no tidings ever came of Johnny's fate, the bloom began to fade quite out of Mary's cheek, and in poor widow Curtis's eyes there dwelt a light so sad it made my old heart ache to observe her. In vain I tried to say some poor comforting words. I could not speak of the boy as dead; but if living, we knew too well the horrors of Southern prisons to be cheered even by that hope. There is nothing so calculated to wear the life out of a loving heart as the bare knowledge that the dear one is swallowed up in a great black gulf of oblivion, almost more frightful than death itself, yet leaving room for a weary ray of hope. It may be usually a matter for thankfulness when there is room for hope; but when the hope is based on such pitiably feeble tenure, and goes on, week after week, with no new life, no breath of intelligence even, good or bad, no faintest tidings-only long, agonizing suspense-ah, my friends, there is nothing that so saps the life-blood-nothing! So the autumn crept slowly away. The dead leaves lay thick in the Beech Woods hollows. So the winter came, and the snow covered the ground and the trees tossed their bare limbs against the sky. Spring melted the snows away, and the May sun shone, and the partridge drummed in the woods, and the meadow lark sang in the pasture, and the orioles and swallows were every where, brightening the branches of many a tree with color and life. Then we heard from Johnny. Dead at Andersonville! One who was with Johnny there, and who left him dead there in April when he came away, brought to Mrs. Curtis a brown rebel newspaper whose broad margin was scrawled with bloody words. This Mary brought to me in the Beech Woods pasture, and I sat me down under the gaunt acorn-tree by the bars and read the words with streaming eyes. I have since copied them from the paper in the order in which I judge them to have been written. They follow: by forever. Oh, dear mother, dear Mary, if I had one touch of your clean hands! You could not kiss poor Johnny. I should die much happier if I could be clean. Goodby, good-by, good-by!" With these words ringing in my ears like the mournful reverberations of some solemn bell, I sat on the great round stone under the tree, and looked about me through the veil of tears that dimmed my eyes. The grass was as bright as of old. The butter-cups and daisies, the clovertops, the raspberry bushes in the corners of the old zigzag rail-fence, the fragrant-breathed cows chewing the cud by the bars-all these were just as they had been years ago, when Mrs. Curtis's boy used to come to drive the cows home down the long shaded road in whose deep soft dust his naked feet paddled contentedly Then my eyes fell upon the petite form of Mary Ostrander, as she leaned her bare head against the trunk of the old acorn, and gazed with her sad brown eyes away off into the long southward distance, while her chestnut curls blew over her fair shoulders and drooped upon the muslin-hid bosom, where long sighs struggled to lift the load that bore down upon her tender heart. I approached her and took her hand. I never can forget the yearning, the anguish that looked out at me from her soul's windows as she turned her face to ine. It thrilled me almost with wonder, for I had never realized in Mary the truthwith which as a principle I was familiar-that feeling has its deepest depths in joyous natures, and when once the iron enters the soul it plunges to these remotest depths. Hard iron will float on molten iron; but the dagger dropped in the bright bubbling spring cleaves straight to the bottom. There were no tears in Mary's eyes! My brother William died in an insane asylum many years ago, and I have made insanity a study. I knew Mary's danger at once. Her doom was certain, unless tears could be brought to her eyes. But in vain I essayed to wake the sealed fountain. She would lay her head wearily on Mrs. Curtis's lap; she would come to me and take my hand in both hers, and rest her cheek upon it; and ever and anon those shuddering sighs, panting from the furnace of agony within, told how fearfully the poor girl suffered. She neglected no duty. She mingled with her friends quite as of old, and often she smiledbut such a touching smile! It was more moving than tears. "Darling mother. Darling brown-eyed Mary. Words I write in my own blood, there being no ink here, but blood in plenty. I am shot in 15 places. I tried to get out of the pen last night. I wish I had waited, for the boys are going home now. My heart is filled with joy, for the war is over. Too late for Johnny. Dear Mary, don't cry for me. How much I love you! He called me a damned snake when he dragged me back into the pen last night. In June our soldiers came home. You will be told how we have suffered. You would shud- been expected for several days, and great prepader to see Johnny. I am as black as a negro with pitch-rations had been going on among the women for pine smoke, and my lips are swollen and sore and one of my cheeks most ate away. It is scurvy. I couldn't help it. Oh, how I wanted to get away where there was water and fresh air! Libby Prison was pretty bad, but not so bad as this one. How I wish I could see you once more! The boys will be marching home now. There will be great times at the Manor, I suppose. Dear, dear mother and Mary, don't cry about me. It has been pretty tough, but some of us must die. I wish it had been in battle, that's all. Written in my blood. How is schoolmaster Baldwin? I hope Mark Löwenstein got off all right. Is your mother pretty well, Mary? Darling girl, we shall roam no more in the old Beech Woods. There'll be some back VOL. XXXI.-No. 185.-RR They had their reception. A table was erected in the old Beech Woods, and there the wives, mothers, sisters, and sweet-hearts of the returning soldiers were gathered to greet them with a bounteous I do not purfeast of homely but hearty fare. pose a description of the happy scene, when the soldiers marched in through the bars, in careless order, with tattered flag flying, and the band As they neared the woods, playing a merry air. the boys broke from the ranks in confusion and rushed forward pell-mell. There were embraced soil. But what dire confusion attends the ings and tears of joy. Mary Ostrander looked process! on the scene but for one moment; then she turned to the table and busied herself in arranging what was already in perfect order. The soldiers gathered about the board, and dough-nuts and cheese vanished before them, as did caldrons of steaming coffee, the soldier's own beverage. What happiness there was in their hon est brown faces! The deck of the steamer is strewn with freight and baggage of every imaginable description. Emigrants laden with trunks, bedding, cooking utensils, etc., are stumbling confusedly about, now over boxes, now over exasperated sailors, to the intense disgust of these latter. Men are cursing, women taking frantic leave of their friends, children crying, agents and officials I watched Mary with feverish anxiety in that with throats of brass shouting and endeavoring hour. There was that in her face to-day that in vain to drive the emigrants below as they bade me hope. Once I fancied I saw her lip come on board from the tug, while loud above quiver; it was when a wagon drove into the all is heard the deafening noise of the steam as wood, from which there crept down the ghastly, the engines are preparing for their long toil. emaciated form of Mark Löwenstein-the only Being desirous of escaping the turmoil I survivor of the band of prisoners that had enter-mount a pile of boxes, and take my seat beside ed Libby Prison after the battle of the Wilder- a nautical-looking individual who, from his eminess. Mark looked about him with an inquiring glance; he was searching for Sarah Buswell, who was at his side that moment, and embraced the wreck of her lover with a passion of tears, but dried them bravely an instant after to minister to Mark's comfort. I went up to him, after he was placed in the big arm-chair that had been prepared for him, and took his hand. "Here's the old schoolmaster," said Mark, with a faint smile. "Johnny's dead, I hear. Where's Mary Ostrander?" She was at the table. "Bring her." Mary obeyed the summons, and Mark took her hand in his. "You're wonderfully changed, Mary," said Mark. "I never should have known you. You miss Johnny, I know. Here; he gave me this ring for you." He drew the ring from one of his emaciated fingers and placed it on Mary's, who shut her hand to keep it there, and then looked steadily at it for an instant. The fountain opened. From beneath the tight-shut lids of her beautiful eyes two great tears stole, and rolled slowly down her cheek. She was saved. This ends the story of that one of my scholMark Löwenstein is recovering, and it is believed he will soon be well. ars. Mrs. Ostrander is dead; and you may see Mrs. Curtis and her adopted daughter Mary now any evening in their common home. Two lonely, lonely women; but every heart in Dale Manor is tender to them, and holds them kin. IN THE STEERAGE. nence, is calmly watching the confusion below. Immediately opposite us stands the Government Medical Commissioner criticising the physique of the future American citizens as they step on board and file before him; for you must know that Uncle Sam permits none that are lame or halt or blind on his territory; that is, unless they can give satisfactory proof that they will not on landing be thrown on his hands for their support. I had heard something about this before, and must confess had formed a somewhat exaggerated idea of the severity of the medical examination it would be necessary for me to pass. Visions of my appearance in a remarkably primitive costume before a stern medical oracle, seated in a private room, had flitted across my brain. I had anticipated all the abominable paraphernalia of medical apparatus for testing the quality of this mortal clay. Nor did I consider my anticipations wholly incorrect when from the tug I caught sight of the professional-looking commissioner awaiting our arrival on the steamer. I was still apprehensive lest he should detect in my slight figure the latent symptoms of consumption, yellow-fever, broken legs, or legs susceptible under slight contingencies of being broken, and the like. However, I and three hundred others ran the gauntlet of those professional eyes with great facility; and I am much mistaken if while doing so I did not hear their owner mutter the words, "Chancellor of the Exchequer" to a friend at his side, which leads me to suspect that the worthy commissioner was thinking more of the forthcoming "Budget" than of Uncle Sam's Emigrants' Sanitary Law. But I have been digressing. Any lingering ideas of rigid examination which after this AD you stood with me on the deck of the might have remained are now speedily dispelled Company's steamer City of New York, as she lay at anchor in the Mersey, you would have thought that "chaos had come again." And yet it was nothing but Nature busy carrying out one of her great social laws. Like a skillful husbandman she was preparing to transfer a portion of the plants belonging to the "genus homo" from a too thickly to a too thinly plant the second batch of emigrants being "examined." Why, bless that benevolent medical commissioner! Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, with all its inmates, might pass bodily before him without ever striking him that Uncle Sam might possibly object to its landing. "Candidate for New York matrimonial market!" exclaims the nautical individual at my side, as an old Irishwoman of seventy or eighty, with rags compartment, and into each one the future ocstreaming to the wind, hobbles past the com-cupant is busy putting what bedding he has promissioner. "Embryo filibuster," he continues, vided himself with, as the company provides pointing to a villainous-looking youth of some nothing excepting space and victuals. eight summers, who follows. "Desirable recruit for light cavalry," amidst a roar of laughter, as Daniel Lambert's likeness rolls heavily past. "Latest acquisition to Barnum's," he finally exclaims, upon catching sight of the last emigrant, or rather an enormous mass of hair, beneath which was supposed to be the last emigrant. All now being on board the commissioner and the emigration agents take their leave, and shortly afterward the anchor is raised, the engines begin to clank, and the shores of England to recede from view. I have not time now to take much notice of my fellow-travelers. Poverty makes strange bedfellows, and I judge by the various tongues I hear around me that seven or eight at least of the States of Europe are represented in this little cabin. When I get over the sickness which I feel instinctively is before me, I shall make it my business to study these various specimens of the human race. In the mean time I, too, must make up as comfortable a bed as circumstances will permit. I had just finished doing this, and was about to turn in for the night, when I heard a voice which appeared to come from the bottom of the sea, inquire in French for No. 26. "Here is No. 26," I replied, pointing to the bunk immediately above mine, and at the same time turning round to see who was going to be my near neighbor. Horror! it is the “desirable recruit for light cavalry"-Daniel Lambert's similitude. Can it be that this three hundred pounder is to occupy the berth above me. I But I am forgetting my berth. My ticket states "Berth No. 25, Steerage," and I think I had better hurry down and secure it before it is appropriated by some one else. I no sooner find myself below than it becomes evident that, disorderly as had been the scene on deck, it is here confusion worse confounded. Some two or three hundred individuals crowded together in dim passages are clamorously inquiring in various tongues for their berths. The energetic stew-glance nervously at the boards which are to ard, however, appears to be equal to the task, though in performing it he swears like a trooper, and by no means confines himself to words; when, as frequently happens, an unfortunate German or Frenchman obstinately persists in addressing him in what he calls their "d-d gibberish." "Now, then," exclaims the steward, seizing the nearest individual by the collar, "What's your number?" "Oui, oui, Monsieur!" replies the person addressed, who happens to be a Frenchman, and consequently shrugs his shoulders and attempts in spite of the crowd to make a bow. "Your ticket!" roars the unceremonious Anglo-Saxon, seizing it at the same time from the bewildered Frenchman's hand. "Number ninety-five;" and before the words are well out of his mouth the steward has administered to the Frenchman a not very gentle incentive, which causes the latter to disappear somewhat suddenly through a neighboring aperture. "Mein Gott!" exclaims a German, who next presents his ticket, and "Dunder und Blitzern," he continues, in a tone of violent indignation as, with a similar incentive, he too disappears after the Frenchman. By such vigorous treatment the indefatigable steward at length succeeds in distributing those of his charge who have been unable to find their own berths. Follow me now into the compartment in which I have discovered "Berth No. 25." The only standing room in it is a space two yards long by one broad, and to right and left of this rise three tiers of bunks. Imagine the drawer frame of a chemist's shop destitute of its drawers, and you will be able to form a pretty good idea of these same bunks. There are twenty of them in the support the weight of this French Brobdingnagian, and the most gloomy forebodings take possession of my mind. Visions of my shattered and bruised corpse being found some morning beneath the fat Frenchman, and of its being consigned to the lonely depths of the Atlantic present themselves vividly to my imagination, and I groan in anguish of spirit. Something must be done. It will never do for me to sleep for about fifteen nights with this ponderous mass of humanity hanging, or rather lying in terrorem over me. I represent to the Shadow the danger to which I should be subject, and he at once comprehends the situation and good-naturedly consents to change bunks. Considerably relieved, I transferred my bed-clothes to the upper bunk and retired for the night, leaving the Shadow to solve as best he could the difficult problem as to how he was to get his giant bulk into the narrow quarters allotted to him. The following morning we arrived at Queenstown, in Ireland, where we stopped to take in the Irish passengers. Here the scene of the preceding day was re-enacted with such additional confusion as might be expected from the taking on board of some six hundred of the "foinest pisintry in the world." Can it be that the Emerald Isle is going bodily to America! For the last three or four hours the emigrants have been coming on board, and still they come. Nor do they come emptyhanded; they are bringing with them whatever riches in the shape of household furniture, etc., they possess; at least as much as they will be allowed space for. They leave little but their cabin walls behind. While watching them one is forcibly reminded of the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt. Not a hoof do these children of Ireland leave behind if they can help it. It may be fancy, but I am almost sure I hear a grunt from some of those Irishmen's big boxes. in which no radical differences will be seen. Those composing it will speak the same language, will have the same general cast of countenance, the same national sympathies and prejudices, and, to a great extent, the same religion; indeed, the very names their ancestors bore will As fast as the new arrivals come on board they are sent below, and, thanks to the wise discrimination of the ship's officers, they go to their own place. And now the last emigrant-be altered so as to suit English speaking lips; perhaps the last of the O'Flahertys-is about to step on board. He is a "foine bhoy" of some twenty summers, with profuse but matted locks which might have been auburn but for their too fiery tinge. As he comes slowly forward to be borne forever from his native isle, his eyes glisten and his hand clutches nervously at a huge bottle of the "crathur" which is to solace the weary passage. "Good-by to ye, ould Ireland! and may the divil take ye," exclaims he, as with an unsteady foot he turns round to take a last view of the old home. "Come, hurry up here!" thunders the boatswain, whose temper has suffered by his having had to stand in the cold during the last two hours seeing the emigrants on board, and as he speaks he seizes the last of the O'Flahertys by the collar and drags him somewhat roughly on the steamer. Now, whether it was that O'F. | recognized in this treatment the last act of Saxon tyranny, or that the dignity of the squatter sovereign had already fallen upon him and been outraged, I knew not-certain it is, that his indignation knows no bounds; his eyes are on fire; he turns upon the boatswain with a torrent of execrations, and with his bottle of whisky aims a stroke at his adversary. As upon a more heroic occasion, "great deeds had now been done," and the sturdy boatswain had come to grief, were it not that he very coolly seizes the unfortunate Irishman by the nape of the neck and sends him flying down the dark descent where have disappeared his companions. Faith, Hope, Charity, and Love would willingly believe that the regions into which he and his whisky bottle descended contained bona fide steerage berths, but that the said dark descent looked so very like the entrance to the Shades. in a word, it will be a generation of Americans. That young lady who is reclining luxuriously in the first-class cabin-the daughter of the Hon. Ruphus Phinn-who is returning from her European tour, is a perfect type of American female beauty; and yet she is only removed by two or three generations from an ancestor-an Irish emigrant-who crossed the Atlantic as ignorant and ragged as any now on board. Were any one to tell you this, Miss Phinn, you would turn away in disgust, or give it an indignant denial. You would be ready to trace an unbroken lineal descent from "one Hezekiah Phynne, who crossed the Atlantic ocean in the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock, Anno Domini 1620. Ah, Miss Phinn! you are not the first who has thus attempted to ignore the poor ancestor to whom you owe your fortune. There is heroism and poetry connected with the Pilgrim Fathers, but you think neither the one nor the other can be associated with the poor Irish emigrant. Methinks if those same Pilgrim Fathers could rise from their graves they would be rather astonished to find how numerous are their descendants, and would puzzle themselves in vain to account for it by the natural laws of increase. No, no, Miss Phinn. If a certain parish register, which is now mouldering in the old church of Ballymahoney, could be made legible, it would tell how that one Patrick O'Finnerty, bricklayer's laborer, married Bridget O'Connor; and then following up the chain of events, it would be found that O'Finnerty went to America and there became rich and begat Finnerty, who begat Finner, who begat Finn, who finally metamorphosed the name into Phinn, and thus threw off the last vestige of the "ould counthry." short black pipe, will undergo a similar clipping process: Shaunegan is going to Pennsylvania, where he will "strike ile," and acquire a fortune. After a time, by reason of the burden of riches on its back, the family will gradually lighten the onerous Irish name of its superfluous letters until, finally, it will assume the truly Saxon form of Shaw. Once more the ship is on her way, and ere The name Shaunegan, whose owner is standmany hours elapse the British Isles disappearing there against the smoke-stack enjoying a from view. There are upward of a thousand souls on board, each with his or her own hopes and fears, each the hero or the heroine of a life romance. Could these lives pass, panoramalike, before our eyes what a marvelous picture should we behold! Some of them would, no doubt, be commonplace enough; but many of them would strange "tales unfold," while in all we should see the play of wild passions and tender emotions-the mysterious working of human nature in its higher and lower conditions. A motley cargo is this of a thousand souls! They are, as I have said, of the "genus homo,' but of what numerous variety! They have scarce any thing in common, for there is all the difference among them that different climates, customs, and religions can produce; yet, strange to say, before very many years have elapsed a generation will spring from this human medley But, alas! while I have been indulging in these reflections the evil that I greatly feared has come upon me. The huge steamer rolls and pitches like a cock-boat on this rough ocean, and causes me to feel all the horrors of seasickness. Adieu, sea and sky! I must hasten down to my bunk, where I know that for three or four days I shall be a close prisoner. I shall not attempt to describe that period. Let not those days be numbered in the years of my life. I only know that, as I lay helpless in my bunk against the ribs of the vessel, I often wished that the pitiless waves which roared within a few inches of my head would burst through the iron plates and swallow me up. However, upon the fourth day the sickness is passed. I rise, wash, eat bread, and am myself again. than usual in the morning, his nostrils were greeted with a strong odor of red herring pervading the cabin. Starting up he saw, with grief and dismay, his nineteen companions coolly devouring his treasures. To the Dutchman's credit be it said, he did not forget to reserve one for his luckless friend. Pickles, sugar, sandIt is yet early morning, and the other occu- wiches, etc., shared a similar fate whenever their pants of the berth are still in their bunks, at incautious possessors left them exposed. Such least partly so, for the bunks being somewhat acts, of course, beget caution, and barter after a short the owners have to hang their legs out-time has to take the place of appropriation. In side. As the atmosphere of the cabin is rather this I become quite an adept, and can tell to a close I now seek the deck for fresh air. Heav-nicety how many red herrings a jar of pickles ens, what a spectacle greets my eyes! The will bring, or what quantity of cheese is represun, more brilliant than ever I had seen it be- sented in a Bologna sausage. fore, like some glorious being instinct with fire, seems to be rising from the ocean, causing the waves to sparkle like liquid silver. Nothing but sea and sky far as the eye can reach. Having enjoyed the scene for some time I return to the cabin, where I find the steward and his assistants busy distributing the morning rations, which consist of hot rolls, butter, and coffee; indeed, the whole of the rations-I say it to the credit of the Company-are good and abundant. The only thing one craves is a little more variety, and this some of the emigrants have anticipated by bringing with them sundry delicacies in the shape of cheese, boiled ham, pickles, preserves, etc. Let the fortunate possessors of these look to them well and beware of exposing them to the general gaze, for as sure as they do they will be numbered among the things that were. I have a confused idea about there being a law of political economy according to which the supply of an article is regulated by the demand there is for it. It strikes me, however, that were Adam Smith or John Stuart Mill in this steerage cabin they would see an exception to that law, though they would, perhaps, argue very learnedly that some of the conditions were wanting. Be this as it may, I can assure my readers that, while there was quite a brisk demand for fancy bread-stuffs, pork-pies, etc., the supply was ridiculously inadequate. However, I suppose the regular laws of trade are set aside in the steerage. "Appropriation" seems to usurp their place. The occupants of our cabin are two Yankee sailors returning from China, three Englishmen, four Irishmen, four Frenchmen, one of whom is an ex-chasseur d'Afrique on his way to the gold diggings, and the other three bound with their "patron," in the first-class cabin, for the Far West. Besides these there are two Germans, a Polish priest on his way to Mexico, a Spaniard, two Swedes, and a Dutchman. They all seem to be good specimens of their various nationalities, as well in their physique as in their habits-the French Brobdingnag beneath me being, of course, excepted. He might have answered for an Englishman. The Yankees are chewing and talking politics. The Englishmen are walking backward and forward in the corridor. The Frenchmen are playing cards and chattering gayly the while. The Germans are lying in bed smoking. Of course the Spaniard is sleeping; while the Swede is reading the history of Charles the Twelfth, and the Dutchman cleaning his tin plates. The Suddenly the Frenchmen become more earnest in their tones. The "patron," from the first-class cabin, and the chasseur d'Afrique especially are becoming quite excited. Some difference of opinion has arisen respecting the game. The chasseur asserts vehemently that he has won the stakes-a half-franc piecewhile the "patron" protests he has not. chasseur appeals to the other Frenchmen, and demands from them a fair verdict. These latter evidently think the chasseur has fairly won the stakes; but then the other is their "patron," and they consequently decline to express an opinion. This rouses the chasseur's indignation. From assertions he rises to invectives, from invectives to denunciations, and from denunciations to threats, till at last a perfect storm of eloquent indignation bursts from his troubled breast. It is positively surprising what skill these emigrants display in converting tuum into meum. Each regards the other's victuals as common property. A ravenous Dutchman having observed one of his companions with a red herring on his plate every morning at breakfast was seized with an unconquerable desire to share in the delicacy. Being on the watch to discover the source of these herrings, he saw their owner early one morning stealthily take a package from under his mattress, and having satisfied himself that he was unobserved, carefully take from it one of the coveted fish. From then at intervals, with a curl of inexpressible that moment their destiny was sealed. That same night the Dutchman skillfully abstracted the package from beneath his sleeping companion, and the first intimation its owner had of his loss was when, upon waking rather later "You will pay me here, or you will pay m in New York!" he exclaims from time to time, with a significant gesture which seems to forebode pistols for two and coffee for one; and contempt on his lips, he grinds between his teeth, "Sacré nom de Dieu! pour une misérable piece de cinq sous!" During all this time the Dutchman, having ceased cleaning his tins, has been looking upon |