"O Irene, Irene," he pleaded, "by the memory of our happy childhood I implore you, speak once more before I go. Say that you will love me, that you will pray for me--pray for my safe return, pray for my soul if I fall in battle!" The marble statue found voice. "I will pray for you, Oleah, to heaven day and night, for your safe return." "But will you give me your love? O Irene, if you only knew how dear you are to me, you will surely learn to love me!" "I have always given you a sister's warmest love, Oleah," she replied, "and this is all too new, too strange, for me to change so suddenly." "But you promise you will change?" he asked eagerly. "I can not promise yet," she said. "I do not know myself, and neither do you comprehend your own feelings." "Irene, dearest, I have known myself for years. Try to love me, and pray for me," he said, and taking both her hands as she came to his side, "for now I must go." He stooped and pressed a kiss on those white lips, and Irene was alone. Soon she heard again the hoof beats of a flying horse, and knew that Oleah had left his home. When he had returned to bid farewell to his home, Abner Tompkins, before entering the house, walked down the long gravel walk, through the avenue of grand old elms, until the outer gate was reached. Here he paused a moment, and gazed up at the moon riding through the dark blue, fathomless vault of heaven; then he turned his gaze upon the spacious pillared mansion, his pleasant home, that he was to leave that night, perhaps forever. It was the home of his childhood; beneath its roof dwelt those he loved; and feelings of sadness filled his heart as he realized the fact that he must leave it. On his right lay the great road, the road that, in his boyhood, he had imagined, led to far-off lands and fairy kingdoms; the road he had thought must be endless, and had desired to follow to its end. Across the road was the forest where he and his brother had so often wandered. Every spot seemed hallowed with sacred remembrances of childhood, and associated with every object and every thought was that brother from whom he was gradually drifting away. He stood beneath the old hickory tree, whose nuts they had gathered, and whose topmost branches they had climbed in their adventurous boyhood. To-night all were fading away. He was going to different scenes, to see strange faces, to meet hardships, danger, perhaps death; worse than all to draw his sword against that very brother whose life had so long been one with his. "Oh, what a curse is civil war," said Abner, with a sigh, "dividing nations, people and kindred." And, leaning against the trunk of the giant old hickory, he stood for a moment lost in painful reverie.