“And so I went—myself and my colonel being only in the secret! In my character of an old itinerant preacher, I succeeded in getting within the enemy’s lines, where I distributed my tracts among the soldiers, and preached proslavery from the text, ‘_Servants obey your masters_,’ and secession from another text, ‘_Come out from among them_.’ I gained ‘golden opinions,’ and what is more, such important information in regard to the strength, position and plans of the enemy that, could I have succeeded in carrying it back to my colonel, it must have totally changed the issue of that disastrous battle of Bull Run.” “But you were taken!” sighed Erminie. “I was taken! I started on my return, but some circumstance, of I know not what nature, excited suspicion. I was followed, arrested, and brought back.” “Oh, my father! oh, my dear, dear father!” exclaimed Erminie, clasping her hand. “My child, you see me sitting here in safety; you feel my arms around you; therefore you can bear to hear some hard facts. I will tell them as shortly and plainly as possible. The result of my arrest was that I was tried as a spy and condemned to die.” “Father! father!” exclaimed Erminie, clasping him closer, as though he were still in danger. “Here I am, safe and well, little daughter! I owe my life to General Eastworth! His services to the cause of the Confederacy were considered very great; his influence was almost unbounded. He recognized me as soon as he saw me, and without divulging my real name, which was not yet discovered, he intervened at the proper point of time, and got my death-sentence commuted to that of imprisonment during the war. I was sent to a Confederate prison in Charleston.” “And it was there I saw you in my dream,” murmured Erminie, but in a voice too low to attract the attention of her father, who continued: “I verily believe that Eastworth procured me to be sent to Charleston so that he could watch over me, and mitigate the rigor of my captivity, for he himself had just been ordered on duty thither. And he has served me like a son for more than three years.” “I am very glad to owe this deep debt of gratitude to General Eastworth,” said Erminie in a low voice. “You will be gladder still to learn that Eastworth, like the Prodigal Son in the Scriptures, _has come to himself_!” “Father! father! is this so? Is this really so?” gasped Erminie in a low, breathless tone, as of suspended rapture. “It is so, my girl, or I never would have brought up his name! There is not a man in the country who mourns with a deeper sorrow over the fatal madness of the secession than does General Eastworth. And not that the cause is lost! for I feel sure that he would not only have mourned, but despaired, could it have succeeded.” “Oh, father! father! I never expected to be so happy in this world, or scarcely even in Heaven, as you have made me with this news!” exclaimed Erminie, as a ray of almost divine joy shone through the tears that filled her eyes.