ggie Logan. Poor Maggie is now
blind with age, but in her palmy days she could carry her mistress, who is
a splendid horsewoman, in a flight of five miles across the prairie in
sixteen minutes. As we enter the box, Maggie turns her pretty head at
sound of the familiar voice, and in response to a gentle hint, her
mistress produces a piece of sugar from her pocket. As Mary Anderson
strokes the fine thoroughbred head, we think the pair are not very much
unlike. Meanwhile, Maggie's stable companion cranes his beautiful neck
over the side of the box, and begs for the caress which is not denied him.

Night has fallen now in earnest, and the beaming colored boy holds his
lantern to guide us along the path, while Maggie whinnies after us her
adieu. The grasshoppers chirp merrily in the sodden grass, and now and
then a startled rabbit darts out of the wood and crosses close to our
feet. The light is almost blinding as we enter the cheerful dining-room,
where supper is laid on the snowy cloth, and are introduced to the
charming family circle of the Long Branch villa. Though it is the home now
of an old Southerner, Mary Anderson's step-father, it is a favorite
trysting-place with Grant, the hero of the North, with Sherman, and many
another famous man, between whom and the South there raged twenty years
ago so deadly and prolonged a feud. While not actually a daughter of the
South by birth, Mary Anderson is such by early education and associations,
and to these grim old soldiers she seems often the emblem of Peace, as
they sit in the pretty drawing-room at Long Branch, and listen, sometimes
with tear-dimmed eyes, to the sweet tones of her voice as she sings for
them their favorite songs.

CHAPTER II.

BIRTH AND EDUCATION.

Seldom has a more charming story been written than that of Mary Anderson's
childhood and youth to the time when, a beautiful girl of sixteen, she
made her _debut_ in what has ever since remained her favorite _role_,
Juliet--and the only Juliet who has ever played the part at the same age
since Fanny Kemble.

There was nothing in her home surroundings to guide in the direction of a
dramatic career; indeed her parents seemed to have entertained the not
uncommon dread of the temptations and dangers of a stage life for their
daughter, and only yielded at last before the earnest passionate purpose
to which so much of Mary Anderson's after success is due. They bent wisely
at length before the mysterious po