s been as good fish in the sea
as there are now. It shall never be said that Beriah Sellers
--Come in?"

It was the telegraph boy. The Colonel reached for the message and
devoured its contents:

"I said it! Never give up the ship! The trial's, postponed till
February, and we'll save the child yet. Bless my life, what lawyers
they, have in New-York! Give them money to fight with; and the ghost of
an excuse, and they: would manage to postpone anything in this world,
unless it might be the millennium or something like that. Now for work
again my boy. The trial will last to the middle of March, sure; Congress
ends the fourth of March. Within three days of the end of the session
they will be done putting through the preliminaries then they will be
ready for national business: Our bill will go through in forty-eight
hours, then, and we'll telegraph a million dollar's to the jury--to the
lawyers, I mean--and the verdict of the jury will be 'Accidental murder
resulting from justifiable insanity'--or something to, that effect,
something to that effect.--Everything is dead sure, now. Come, what is
the matter? What are you wilting down like that, for? You mustn't be a
girl, you know."

"Oh, Colonel, I am become so used to troubles, so used to failures,
disappointments, hard luck of all kinds, that a little good news breaks
me right down. Everything has been so hopeless that now I can't stand
good news at all. It is too good to be true, anyway. Don't you see how
our bad luck has worked on me? My hair is getting gray, and many nights
I don't sleep at all. I wish it was all over and we could rest. I wish
we could lie, down and just forget everything, and let it all be just a
dream that is done and can't come back to trouble us any more. I am so
tired."

"Ah, poor child, don't talk like that-cheer up--there's daylight ahead.
Don't give, up. You'll have Laura again, and--Louise, and your mother,
and oceans and oceans of money--and then you can go away, ever so far
away somewhere, if you want to, and forget all about this infernal place.
And by George I'll go with you! I'll go with you--now there's my word on
it. Cheer up. I'll run out and tell the friends the news."

And he wrung Washington's hand and was about to hurry away when his
companion, in a burst of grateful admiration said:

"I think you are the best soul and the noblest I ever knew, Colonel
Sellers! and if the people only knew you as I do, you