[Footnote 3: December, 1862.] So much for the confidence that _one_ entertains, of being able to avoid the blunders of the other! Not one of the predecessors of Scherazaide, it is probable, went to the marriage bed of the Sultan without believing that _she_ could fix the wavering love of the tyrant and avoid the fate threatened for the morrow! And yet some hundreds of fair white bosoms furnished a morning banquet to the fishes, before Scherazaide the Wise succeeded in entangling the Sultan in the meshes of her golden speech! It may be a little difficult to guess what this has to do with the narration. Simply this--that one of the most amiable and fascinating of women played what might have been called "a mean trick" on the occasion, and there has seemed to exist some occasion for making her excuse before relating the iniquity. Having settled that during the War for the Union there has not been half enough of "spying," on the side of right,--and having before us not only the examples of John Champe and Nathan Hale, beloved of Washington, but of the two estimable young men not long emerged from under the area steps in 5-- Street, let us dismiss the contempt with which we have been wont to regard Paul Pry and Betty the housemaid, listening at key-holes, in our favorite dramas, and look mercifully upon the peccadilloes of Miss Josephine Harris. Colonel Egbert Crawford, who entered the room of the invalid on that occasion, was a tall and rather fine-looking man, with the least dash of iron-gray in his hair and a decidedly soldierly bearing. He had dark eyes, a little too small and not always direct in their glance, but only close observers would have been able to make the latter discovery. Had he been wise, he would have worn something more than the full moustache and military side-whiskers, for the under lip and chin being close shaven the play of the muscles of the lip, and its shape, were visible. The lip was heavy and sullen, if not cruel; and any one who watched him closely enough (close as Josephine Harris had sometimes been watching him, say!) could see that the under lip had an almost constant twitching motion, and that the hands, when unoccupied, were always opening and shutting themselves much too often for a mind at ease. He was dressed in the full regulation blue uniform, with fatigue-cap, in spite of the heat of the weather, and with the eagle on shoulder and the red belts and gilt hook at waist suggesting the sword that was to come some time or other.