About a week after his arrival at home, Archie Winters and his parents reached the village, the latter having "taken a holiday" in honor of the young paymaster's safe return. The cousins spent their furlough in visiting their old hunting and fishing-grounds, and in calling upon their friends. George and Harry Butler had returned, the former with an empty sleeve, having lost his arm in the Battle of the Wilderness. But all their companions had not been as fortunate as themselves. More than one had been offered upon the altar of their country, and many a familiar face was missing. At the expiration of their three months' leave, Frank and Archie received their honorable discharges from the service, the sight of which recalled vividly to their minds many a thrilling scene through which they had passed. How changed the scene now from that when they had first bid adieu to their homes, to join the ranks of their country's defenders! "Then a gigantic rebellion was in progress; armed men sentineled each other from Virginia to the Rio Grande; and the land was filled with the crash of contending armies. Now, the rebel forces are vanquished, their banner in the dust; the slave empire that was to rise upon the ruins of the Republic is itself in ruins; and the soldiers and sailors of the Union, returning their weapons to the arsenals, have exchanged their honored blue for the citizen's garb, and resumed their peaceful avocations, as modest and unassuming as though they had never performed the deeds of valor that have filled the whole civilized world with wonder." Frank and Archie are proud of the part they have borne in the war of the Rebellion, and will never forget their varied and eventful experience in the MISSISSIPPI SQUADRON. End of Project Gutenberg's Frank on the Lower Mississippi, by Harry Castlemon