That night, when the stars came out over Rockland, a party of twelve or more was congregated at the house of the widow Simms, where, but for the sad memory of Isaac, whose soldier-coat hung on the wall, with the knapsack carried into battle, all would have been, joy and hilarity at the prospect of certain peace. But death had been in that household, just as it had crept across many and many another threshold; and mingled with the rejoicings were tears and sad regrets for the dead of our land, whose graves were everywhere, from the shadowy forests of Maine, and the vast prairies of the West, to the sunny plains of the South, where they fought and died. There were twenty-five buried in the Rockland graveyard; and others than the party assembled at Mrs. Simms, thought of the vacant chairs at home, and the sleeping dead whose ears were deaf to the notes of peace floating so musically over the land. Charlie’s face was very white, and there were tears in his eyes as he laid his thin, white hands reverently upon the box, examining its make, and bending close to the name, and date, and words cut upon it.—“Isaac Simms, Rockland, April 25th, 1861. This box to be burned——” There was a blank which the boy, who had cut the words with his jack-knife, could not supply. He did not know _when_ the box would be burned. Then it was April, 1861; now it was April, 1865. Four years of strife and bloodshed, thousands and thousands of desolate hearth-stones, and broken hearts, and lifeless forms both North and South, and the end had come at last. But the boy Isaac was not there to see it. It was not for _him_ to fill up that blank; but for the Southern boy, Charlie De Vere, who took his pencil from his pocket, and wrote, “April 3d, 1865, to celebrate the fall of Richmond, and the end of the Confederacy. Charles De Vere.” “Who shall light the pile?” Tom asked, when all was ready. And Charlie answered, “Let me, please. Surely I may light the fire!” And he did light it, and then, with the rest, looked on while the smoke and the flames curled up toward the starry heavens where the boy Isaac had gone, and where Charlie in his dreams that night saw him so distinctly, and grasped his friendly hand. After that night, Charlie failed rapidly, and often in his sleep, he talked to some one who seemed to be Arthur, and said it was “a mistake, a dreadful mistake.” At last, as Maude sat by him one day, the fifth after the bonfire on the grass-plat, he said to her suddenly: “Maude, if a man kills another and didn’t mean to, is it _murder_?” “No, it is manslaughter. Why do you ask?” Maude said; and Charlie continued: “Don’t hate me, Maude, nor tell any body, for _I_ killed Arthur, myself. I shot him right through the head, and—Maude, he thought it was _you_!” “Oh! Charlie! Charlie!” and Maude shrieked aloud as she bent over her brother, who continued: