It was a long and arduous journey that lay before her: unknown difficulties and adventures were to be encountered, but urgent family considerations forced Helen Gerard to leave her home in the South, and her brother who was engaged in the service of the Confederacy, and, to make her way through the enemy's lines to New York. She left Mobile on the evening-train for Meridian, Mississippi, after taking an affecting farewell of her brother, whom she never spoke to again. As they stood on the platform of the railway-station, waiting for the hour of departure, she vowed at his earnest solicitation, and out of the depth of her affection, that never, under any possible circumstances, would she be induced to take the oath of allegiance to the Federal government. It was three o'clock in the morning when the train reached Meridian, and Miss Gerard was guided by the feeble light of a smoky lantern to a dilapidated inn miscalled an hotel. She was shown to an apartment the darkness of which was scarcely relieved by a smouldering pine-brand in the fireplace, a mere flickering, expiring glimmer. Forlorn and exhausted, Helen hastily threw off part of her clothing and crept into a spacious bed; which she had scarcely done when the room was left in total darkness. The boisterous breakfast-bell awoke her in the gray of an October morning, and at the same time aroused her to the horrified consciousness that she had a bedfellow. Be it said, to the credit of the house, that it was a woman, as Helen was immediately assured by the voice of the stranger inquiring whether Miss Gerard was to leave on an early train. Hastily catching her breath, Helen replied, "Yes." "Then you cannot make your toilet and take your breakfast too quickly," said the woman. Springing to her feet and hastily adjusting the rich masses of curls that rippled over her shoulders to her waist, Miss Gerard was able to catch the morning-train to Jackson, Mississippi, crossing Pearl River on a pontoon-bridge. In a nondescript vehicle between a carriage and a cart she climbed the sandy hill on which Jackson is situated, and was soon established in a moderately good boarding-house. Both here and elsewhere during her journey she bore herself in such manner as to convey little idea of her actual circumstances, partly to elude any suspicion that she carried concealed on her person four bags of gold to defray the expenses of her journey to New York.