ought to have quarrelled and sulked, but they
didn't. And the babies that came were a source of delight. Though there
was suffering in Daisy's life, there was so much joy that, to her, it
was the unalloyed delight of living.

And Jim outgrew his fancy, and had many another one that did not strike
deep enough in the soil to lead him to ask a woman to marry him. But he
and Daisy were fast friends, and he saw that no one could ever have
cared for her as well and wisely as dear Doctor Joe, with his wonderful
tenderness.

Jim, brilliant and gay and witty, was a fine, fluent speaker, studying
such eloquent models as Webster and Choate, and the vanished Clay. Did
Hanny remember, when they had lost his election, and he, Jim, had turned
out with the Democratic boys? There are grave questions now, on wider
than party lines, and sometimes the hearts of thoughtful statesmen beat
with an undefined fear.

The fun-loving, dancing side of his nature often asserts itself. Women
adore him. Though he is not rich, the mothers smile on him for the
"promise yet to be." Even Lily Williamson tries her arts; admiration is
what she lives for now. She is one of the handsome, fascinating society
vampires, who make great capital out of matrimonial infelicities, to
appeal to the sympathies of really good and generous men, who are the
more easily caught in the silken nets. One day she leaves her worthless
drunken husband, when his money is all spent, and elopes with a young
fellow of excellent family who has just come into a fortune, and later
becomes one of the adventuresses that disgrace Americans in the eyes of
European propriety.

Ben and Delia go abroad,--Ben in the interest of his paper, which is
next to his wife; Delia to write travel letters for a weekly, and find
material for her novel. It is quite a picnic, and they enjoy the
economies.

Then the clouds that have been gathering a long, long while, break over
the country, and all is tumult from end to end. The Seventh Regiment
"boys" go down to Washington, with brave, laughing, high-hearted Jim,
who understands that it is no child's play, but a bitter struggle that
will call forth the best energies of the country, and who enlists for
"three years or the whole war." Ben hurries home, and takes his place in
the ranks. When things are at their lowest ebb, and men's hearts are
sinking with fear, quiet, grave John buckles on a soldier's haversack
and marches away. The others have substitute