longer a far off myth to the lonely wife; _her_ husband held guard upon the heights which defended the Capital. No longer a place good for nothing but political schemes to the village sage; _his boy_, wrapped in his blanket, slept on the stone steps under the shadow of the great Treasury. The Capital, it was sacred at last to tens of thousands, whose beloved languished in the wards of its hospitals or slept the sleep of the brave in the dust of its cemeteries. Thus from the holocaust of war, from the ashes of our sires and sons arose new-born the holy love of country, and veneration for its Capital. The zeal of nationality, the passion of patriotism awoke above the bodies of our slain. National songs, the inspiration of patriots, soared toward heaven. National monuments began to rise consecrated forever to the martyrs of Liberty. Never, till that hour, did the Federal city—the city of George Washington, the first-born child of the Union, born to live or to perish with it,—become to the heart of the American people that which it had so long been in the eyes of the world—truly the CAPITAL OF THE NATION. CHAPTER VI. THE WASHINGTON OF THE PRESENT DAY. Hopes Realized—A Truly National City—Washington in 1873—Major L’Enfant’s Dream—Old and New—“Modern Improvements”—A City of Palaces—The Capital in All Its Glory—Traces of the War—Flowers on the Ramparts—Under the Oaks of Arlington—Ten Years Ago—The Birth of a Century—The Reign of Peace—The Capital of the Future. And now! The citizen of the year of our Lord 1881 sees the dawn of that perfect day of which the founders of the Capital so fondly and fruitlessly dreamed. The old provincial Southern city is no more. From its foundations has risen another city, neither Southern nor Northern, but national, cosmopolitan. [Illustration: THE NATIONAL CAPITOL.—WASHINGTON. It covers more than three and a half acres. Over thirteen million dollars have thus far been expended in its erection. ]