But, ah! he had survived all the horrible perils and sufferings by cold, hunger, and the foe, endured by our army during that long and terrible struggle, and returned safe, to die in a time of peace—to die at home, where every care and comfort surrounded him. Yes, he came home in the winter of —82. Towards the spring, he took a slight cold—it was neglected as of little account—it settled upon his lungs—before winter came again, he died, and the first snow that fell, fell upon his grave. My honored mother was a strong-minded woman. After what I have told you, you know that she was! She loved him as only the strong can love. She suffered as only the strong can suffer. She rose above that death-blow to her happiness as only the strong can rise. But she has never been the same woman since. When a few years had passed, and her son’s welfare demanded her care, she aroused every faculty of her mind and body, for the ‘purpose of insuring’ his greatest good. Even at that epoch of time, there was no reason to suppose that I should inherit the Clifton estate. My uncle was then in the prime of manhood, had married his second wife, and by no means despaired of male issue. My dear mother taxed soul, body and estate to the utmost, to defray my expenses at college, during the seven years of my residence there. It was also to her persevering exertions, as well as to the late military services of my deceased father, that I owed my commission in the army. They say that _misfortunes_ never come single. _Good fortune_ certainly ne’er does, if I may judge of our own experience of both. When I had left college, the heaviest tax was raised from our income, and when I obtained a commission in the army, my year’s pay more than doubled the annual income from the proceeds of the farm. At this time also my mother received a legacy from an aged and distant relative, which enabled her to stock her farm well, and furnish her house comfortably. Furthermore, my uncle having lost his _third_ wife, and at last given up all thoughts of a son of his own, began to take quite a paternal interest in me—insisting, when off duty, I should spend all my time with him—and finding neither myself nor my mother disposed to forego each other’s society, would have persuaded the latter to take up her abode under his roof. But that arrangement did not suit my mother. She, who in her young womanhood had too high a spirit for dependence—preferring to give herself to severest toil and privation, rather than live in easy luxury under another’s roof—could not in her stern maturity be bribed to give up her well-earned independence. Nor indeed, under any circumstances, should I have consented to the plan. We compromised the matter by my agreeing to spend half the time of furlough at Clifton. This was the more congenial to my feelings, as my cousin Carolyn had now left school permanently. As for my uncle, he consoled himself for his disappointment