Accoutrements--Banners Inscribed with the K. K. K. Escutcheon--How
the Scene Impressed Beholders.

In the month of November, A. D. 1866, in that portion of Western Tennessee
known to dwellers as the Kentucky purchase, was enacted a scene which
possessed romantic features entitling it to rank with the most exquisite
fancies of Lamartine or Moore, and which, conscious of our inability to
improve on its smallest detail, is presented to the reader without any
fictitious adornment whatever.

In one of the apartments of the elegant mansion of Paul Thorburn, Esq.,
was assembled a company of pale watchers, who seemed thoroughly enlisted
in behalf of their sick charge--an adult son of this gentleman, who for
weeks had been prostrated by a virulent fever. It was plainly to be seen
from the countenances of the good Samaritans who had been lingering near
the couch--but now conversed apart, or telegraphed signals to those who
waited without--that all hope of the invalid's recovery had vanished.
Since the physician had passed from the apartment, whispering an attendant
that he would return no more, the furniture of the room had been
readjusted as if in obedience to the crisis in the affairs of its owners;
that portion of the attendants who lingered had left their seats, and
stood with folded arms and reclined heads, and the entire surroundings
wore that abstracted and melancholy air which the reader cannot fail to
have associated in fancy with such scenes.

The mother of the young man, pale and distraught from long weeping, had
imprinted a kiss of heartbreaking farewell on the brow of her son, and
removed her station to a neighboring window, whence she looked out upon
the autumn landscape, and anon, as if seeking aid from afar, up at the
pale empress of night, which, as it neared the meridian, projected great
bars of golden light into the apartment. Her attitude had not changed for
many minutes, as if the burden of grief that pressed inwardly upon her had
taken away the power of motion, and now reclined against the casement--in
form and feature immobile as sculptured Psyche, the tableau engrossed the
attention of all who lingered in the vicinity. It may have been, too, that
by means of that subtle, unperceivable line of communications, established
between the emotions of beings and coming events which are to effect
their destinies, a signal had been telegraphed to the waiting company;
for from the moment that they had been