bably a majority of
our public men have served in this capacity.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE TRAGIC END.

I should like to end my story here, and feel that it was complete. I
should like with my countrymen to be still looking forward with interest
to the successful results of an administration, guided by the
experienced statesman whose career we have followed step by step from
its humble beginnings. But it can not be.

On the second of July, in the present year, a startling rumor was borne
on the wings of the lightning to the remotest parts of the land:

"President Garfield has been assassinated!"

The excitement was only paralleled by that which prevailed in 1865, when
Abraham Lincoln was treacherously killed by an assassin. But in this
later case the astonishment was greater, and all men asked, "What can it
mean?"

We were in a state of profound peace. No wars nor rumors of war
disturbed the humble mind, and the blow was utterly unexpected and
inexplicable.

The explanation came soon enough. It was the work of a wretched
political adventurer, who, inflated by an overweening estimate of his
own abilities and importance, had made a preposterous claim to two high
political offices--the post of Minister to Austria, and Consul to
Paris--and receiving no encouragement in either direction, had
deliberately made up his mind to "remove" the President, as he termed
it, in the foolish hope that his chances of gaining office would be
better under another administration.

My youngest readers will remember the sad excitement of that eventful
day. They will remember, also, how the public hopes strengthened or
weakened with the varying bulletins of each day during the protracted
sickness of the nation's head. They will not need to be reminded how
intense was the anxiety everywhere manifested, without regard to party
or section, for the recovery of the suffering ruler. And they will
surely remember the imposing demonstrations of sorrow when the end was
announced. Some of the warmest expressions of grief came from the
South, who in this time of national calamity were at one with their
brothers of the North. And when, on the 26th of September, the last
funeral rites were celebrated, and the body of the dead President was
consigned to its last resting-place in the beautiful Lake View Cemetery,
in sight of the pleasant lake on which his eyes rested as a boy, never
before had there been such imposing demonstrations of grief in