"Son of man behold I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke, yet neither shalt thou mourn, neither shalt thy tears run down." Four score and two years were the days of the years of his pilgrimage; many and evil had the days of his years been. Would there be mourners at the burial? Will 'old glory' hang its head again as it did at the assizes, when an outraged commonwealth was proceeding to judgment against Laflin for enumerated transgressions? Three score and ten years are the complement of life, within which the balance sheet is prepared; repenting against sinning; undoing against doing; dying against living; accounts and contra-accounts, all fairly computed, and the quotient announced by Him who breathes into man's nostrils the breath of life. Four score and two years! What changes in the theories and forms of governments; what contrarieties in the pursuits and ambitions of man. The messenger came without the rattling of wheels, without knocking at the door, came on unsandaled feet. "Hannah, I'm agwine home, good-bye," was the hurried parting, as the messenger thrust him into his chariot. Side by side he sat with the voiceless ambassador, while the stars were twinkling in the midnight sky; a fast disappearing type of the picturesque civilization of the sixties. His tracks around the old commissariat are now faded into nothingness, and old glory will wave on and on "froo de trees," just as proudly as that day when he stood at its staff and patriotically saluted the stars and stripes with uncovered head, proclaiming his loyalty in the grateful expression, "I node when I seed yu a sea-sawing in de air dat dar was a stummick full of good wittles some whays." In the true representative outlines of the old South there is a number dropped from the rolls, that is all. In its new birth of constitutional liberty, postponed until patriots shall have tired of a government inefficient and venal, the memory of Joshua, laden with fragrance, will cling to hearts that now deplore his death. Good bye, Uncle Joshua until we meet upon the golden strand! Until we see you again without your staff, with your face radiant with a celestial gleam, in a fleecy robe, with golden sandals; until we hear you say so contentedly, "Brederin, dere is kommissaries all erroun in dis butiful country, und yu kin buy widout munny und widout price." CHAPTER XXII. AN HOUR WITH DICKENS.