“Well, this Christopher Columbus of whom all the histories tell and everybody knows, he was only a sailor boy, once, roving about in the Mediterranean, with small chance of ever becoming noted. As little chance would it seem there was when, years later, he went from court to court, vainly asking aid to carry out his project. People had hardly begun, yet, to credit the notion that the world was round; and this tall, sad-eyed, white-haired, shabbily dressed stranger, with his maps and his charts, and his plans for sailing straight West to India, who was going to listen to him? Kings and queens were unwilling to see him or give him an opportunity to explain, courtiers ridiculed him, children in the street would point to their foreheads, as he passed by, and call out to each other, ‘Look at the crazy Italian!’ But often disappointed, always hoping and persevering, he stuck to his project, and finally, after eighteen long years of waiting and fruitless effort, he got the help he wanted and started on his voyage, and so found—not India, but America.” And as the Lieutenant and his young guide walk slowly homeward through the silent, moonlit avenues, he speaks of Lincoln, of Herder, of Ferguson, of Beethoven, of Sir William Herschel, and of others who have risen from poverty and obscurity to honor and renown; many of them “self-made,” as it is called, toiling patiently and unaided up that steep hill where the laurels grow. Kate hears the hopeful ring in the lad’s voice as he says “Good night” to his friend, and through the open window she sees the hopeful expression upon his face as he turns away, glancing down rather proudly at the jacket that is mended with pieces of many shades, and the boots that have been patched and patched again. “What can you have been saying to him, Walter?” she wonders. “Oh, if you could only have seen his face just now! He doesn’t look like the same boy.” And Walter musingly repeats those lines with which every “wide-awake” American boy and girl is familiar. For was it not Longfellow who wrote them? “Lives of great men all remind us We may make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time; “Footprints that perchance another, Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.” When, just before breakfast, Kate opens the door to look for the morning paper, what does she find lying there on the threshold beside it? Fresh water-lilies—the like of which are not to be found nearer than the lake—miles away. “He has been all that way and back, this morning! bless his little heart!” she exclaims, in astonishment, as she carries them to her brother, breathing a thousand sweetest “Thank-you’s,” from among their snowy petals. And you may be sure that those patched garments will soon be replaced by others nice and new. KATE’S GREAT-GREAT-GRANDMOTHER.