to his execution. He knew that the rebel
officers had a summary way of dealing with cases like his own; and he was
prepared to be condemned, even before another sun rose to gladden him
with his cheerful light. He thought of his mother, of his father, of the
other members of the family, and of the blow it would be to them to learn
that he had been hanged as a spy. He thought of Pinchbrook, of the happy
days he had spent there, and of those who had been his true friends. He
thought of Lilian Ashford, the beautiful one, in the remembrance of whose
sweet smile he had reveled every day since they parted, and which he had
hoped to enjoy again when war should no more desolate the land, and he
should be proudly enrolled with the heroes who had saved the nation from
ruin.

All these pleasant memories, all these bright hopes, all these loving
forms, though present in his heart, seemed dim and distant to him. He had
nothing to hope for in the future on this side of the grave, nothing in
the present but an ignominious death on the scaffold. Yet it was sweet to
die for one's country; and, disgraceful as his end might be in its form,
it was still in the service of the nation. He felt happy in the thought;
and, if there was nothing more on earth to hope for, there was still a
bright heaven beyond the deepest and darkest grave into which the hate of
traitors could plunge him, where the ruptured ties of this life are again
restored, never again to be subject to change and decay.

There was a tear in his eye as he thought of his fond mother; and he wept
for her when he could not weep for himself. No one saw that tear, and the
officer permitted him to indulge his sad revery in silence. But, after
they had walked two or three squares, his companion in authority suddenly
stopped.

"I have left a book, which I carried in my hand, at the depot," said he,
in tones full of chagrin at his carelessness. "I must have it; for I can
do nothing without it."

"Where did you leave it?" asked the soldier.

"In the guard-room. You may go back, and bring it to me. Give me your
gun; you needn't carry that."

"Where shall I find you?"

"Here, where you leave me. Go quick, my man."

"I won't be gone ten minutes," replied the soldier, as he started off at
a run for the missing volume.

The officer took the gun, and stood by the side of his prisoner, at the
corner of the street, till the soldier disappeared in the darkness.
Somers, still thinking of