"Boy, she is yours. But hold! Look me in the eye. Throughout all this have you been loyal?" "To the core!" cried William Barker. "And," continued the old man, in a voice husky with emotion, "are you in favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war?" "I am, I am!" "Then, boy take her! Maria, child, come hither. Your William claims thee. Be happy, my children! And whatever our lot in life may be, LET US ALL SUPPORT THE GOVERNMENT!" 3.4. A ROMANCE--THE CONSCRIPT. [Which may bother the reader a little unless he is familiar with the music of the day.] CHAPTER I. Philander Reed struggled with spool-thread and tape in a dry- goods store at Ogdensburg, on the St. Lawrence River, State of New York. He Rallied Round the Flag, Boys, and HAILED Columbia every time she passed that way. One day a regiment returning from the war Came Marching Along, bringing An Intelligent Contraband with them, who left the South about the time Babylon was a-Fallin', and when it was apparent to all well-ordered minds that the Kingdom was Coming, accompanied by the Day of Jubilee. Philander left his spool-thread and tape, rushed into the street, and by his Long-Tail Blue, sed, "Let me kiss him for his Mother." Then, with patriotic jocularity, he inquired, "How is your High Daddy in the Morning?" to which Pomp of Cudjo's Cave replied, "That poor Old Slave has gone to rest, we ne'er shall see him more! But U.S.G. is the man for me, or Any other Man." Then he Walked Round. "And your Master," sed Philander, "where is he?" "Massa's in the cold, cold ground--at least I hope so!" sed the gay contraband. "March on, March on! all hearts rejoice!" cried the Colonel, who was mounted on a Bob-tailed nag--on which, in times of Peace, my soul, O Peace! he had betted his money. "Yaw," sed a German Bold Sojer Boy, "we don't-fights-mit-Segel as much as we did." The regiment marched on, and Philander betook himself to his mother's Cottage Near the Banks of that Lone River, and rehearsed the stirring speech he was to make that night at a war meeting. "It's just before the battle, Mother," he said, "and I want to say something that will encourage Grant." CHAPTER II.--MABEL. Mabel Tucker was an orphan. Her father, Dan Tucker, was run over one day by a train of cars though he needn't have been, for the kind-hearted engineer told him to Git out of the Way. Mabel early manifested a marked inclination for the milinery business, and at the time we introduce her to our readers she was Chief Engineer of a Millinery Shop and Boss of a Sewing Machine. Philander Reed loved Mabel Tucker, and Ever of her was Fondly Dreaming; and she used to say, "Will you love me Then as Now?" to which he would answer that he would, and WITHOUT the written consent of his parents.