The boy had spoken no more than the truth. Column after column of names filled up the dead-list; and that was followed by so many names of the wounded and missing, that the most eager affection would tire in searching them. But the eyes of this weary old man seized upon each name, and dropped it with the quickness of lightning. He had so long been accustomed to adding up columns of intricate figures, that names of the dead glided by him like shadows. One column was despatched, and then another. “What folly,” he said, looking up from the paper. “Why should a dream set me to searching here? Ha! Oh! God, help me! It is here!” The paper dropped from his hold; his head fell forward. Besting an elbow on each knee, he supported that drooping head with two quivering hands. After a time he arose from the sofa, and began to walk slowly up and down the room with his arms behind him, and his fingers interlocked with a grip of iron. “Her only son—her only hope.” This hard, perhaps we may say, this bad man, had been so shaken by a dream that had seized upon his conscience in the night, that he was almost given up to regrets; for the dream was reality now—that paper had told him so. “Why should I have bought that?” he said, starting from the paper which rustled against him as he walked. “Just as I was thinking to search him out, too. Oh, me! it is hard—it is hard!” It is an old man I am writing about—a hard, stern man, self-sufficient, and above such small human weaknesses as grow out of the affections; but his whole nature was broken up for the moment. Some plan of atonement, generosity, or ambition, had been overthrown by the reading of that one name among the killed of a great battle. These thoughts crowded on the lonely man so closely, that he felt suffocated even in that vast room, and went into the hall, beating his breast for the breath that was stifling him. But even the cold hall seemed without atmosphere. So the old man seized his hat, put on an overcoat that hung on the rack, and went into the street. He had no object, save that of finding air to breathe, and wandered off, walking more briskly than he had done for years, though his cane had been left behind. For more than an hour the old man wandered through the streets, so buried, soul and sense, in the past, that he scarcely knew whether it was night or day. At last he came opposite the great fair. Around the entrance a crowd was gathered, and people were passing through in groups, as if some special attraction carried them there. The old man remembered at once that he had been applied to for contributions to this fair, and, being in a crusty mood, had refused to contribute a cent. Now, when the effect of that name in the death-list was upon him, he groaned at the remembrance of his rudeness; and forcing his way with the crowd, purchased a ticket and went in.