Young Savage went up those marble steps with a light heart and a generous purpose. He would befriend this unfortunate family. His mother should help him. That girl, with the bright, brunette face, was too beautiful for her friendless condition, and the burden of those three helpless creatures who depended on her. He could not get her picture, as she stood by the fireplace, out of his mind. “Where is my mother?” he inquired of the servant, passing him at the door with a light step. “Up in her own room, sir. She has just come in.” Horace made his way up stairs, and entered one of the most luxurious rooms of the noble mansion, in which his mother was sitting, or, rather, lying, with her elbow buried in the satin pillows of a crimson couch, and her foot pressed hard upon an embroidered ottoman. Horace opened the door without noise, and walking across a carpet soft as moss, sat down on the foot of his mother’s couch. She was a handsome woman, this Mrs. Savage—large, tall, and commanding. It was easy to see where the young man got those fine, grey eyes, and brilliant complexion. “Oh, Horace! I am glad you have come! Such a day as I have gone through!” cried the lady, fluttering the white ribbons of her pretty dress cap, by the despairing shake of her head. “Upon my word, I think those women will be the death of me; such selfishness! such egotism!” “It must be very tiresome; but then I sometimes think you like to be tired out on such occasions, mother.” “But the cause, Horace, the great cause of humanity. These poor soldiers toiling in the field, suffering, dying—and their families. It is enough to break one’s heart.” Horace looked at his mother in her costly dress, trimmed half way up the skirt with velvet, and lace, and fancy buttons, the cost of which would have fed old Mrs. Burns for a twelvemonth; and, for the first time in his life, a faint idea of her inconsistency broke upon his filial blindness. The very point-lace of her tiny cap would have given a month of tolerable comfort to the soldier’s orphans. Yet, with all this wanton finery fluttering about her, the woman really thought herself a most charitable person, and mourned the dead and wounded over each battle right regally, under moire antique rippled with light, like a cloud in a thunderstorm, at a cost of some ten dollars per yard.