hunger and peril and hardship, dying, and sending their children to die, in battle? Was it a spirit of blind submission to Shamyl and their religious leaders, or an unreasoning hatred of infidels, or a thirst for plunder and rapine? Not at all. It was the love of independence--the natural devotion of brave men who were fighting for their country, their honor and their freedom." GEORGE KENNAN. THE GIFT. You brought me a flower of spring When the winter airs were cold, And the birds began to sing, And the gloom turned swift to gold. The world looked chilly and dark, But you called a flash from the sky: Your clear eyes kindled a spark Of splendor that cannot die. O Love with the heart of Truth! What is it you lay at my feet? The bloom of your glorious youth, Its flower and radiance sweet? I lift to my lips the flower, For thanks seem worthless and weak, And I bless the beautiful hour, But I have no word to speak. CELIA THAXTER. THROUGH WINDING WAYS. CHAPTER XIII. I am not enough of a hero even in my own story to dwell upon the events of the two following years. I graduated with honors, of which I was secretly and my mother and Mr. Floyd ostentatiously proud. Then my guardian and I set out upon our travels. Travel was something different in those times from what it is to-day, but Mr. Floyd had for years been familiar with the best of European life, and this gave me opportunities such as few men of my age possessed. We spent our second winter in the East: then returned to Florence, and were planning a few months more of adventure when we received the news of Mr. Raymond's death. Mr. Floyd had but one thought after this, which was that now at last his little girl was his own again. He had had an accident in Damascus--a fall which in itself was not serious, causing mere contusion and sprains, but it had resulted in a severe illness by the time we reached Alexandria. Harry Dart had been with us in Egypt and Palestine, but was obliged to leave us, and for a month or more I had nursed my guardian assiduously, with a fear lest this was to be the end of a sacred and beloved existence. He too feared it, and between his intervals of pain would say, "I want to see my little girl once more: I must see your mother. Oh, why do we separate ourselves from those we love?" But he rallied, and finally regained his ordinary health, and before May we were again in Florence in our old rooms and talking of joining Harry Dart at Venice, when Helen's letter came.