A chivalric spirit led him now to speak of "Lady Washington." This moved him most of all, and when he declared that he would repeat for me some lines composed by her, which he had learned by heart as a boy, his emotions were almost beyond control. His job was finished now, and he drew himself up, and made a strong effort to modulate his voice, which was trembling with feeling. The lines had an evident magic for him, and he repeated them with great throbs of emotion, while his eyes grew dim: Saw ye my hero? Saw ye my hero? I saw not your hero; But I'm told he's in the van, When the battle just began, And he stays to take care of his men. Oh ye gods! I give you my charge To protect my hero, George, And return him safe home to my arms. Then, bending toward me, he placed a trembling hand on my knee; and looking dimly into my eyes, he said, in husky tones: "And they did, didn't they?" I assented earnestly, charmed by his sincerity and enthusiasm, only hopeful that there was some mistake in the unexpected glimpse of Lady Washington in the character of a poet, and like my friend struggling with feeling that I found it hard to suppress, and which expressed, would have been sadly out of harmony with the scriptural injunction to "weep with them that weep." There was a charm in the old cobbler's harangue, which I felt for long. Even his views of life seemed to appear in these crude enthusiasms upon general themes. There was a note of optimism which one could not fail to catch, and to respect in a man who, for fifty years, had honestly earned his living on a cobbler's bench. His sense of proprietorship in his country, and of natural right to high personal pride in her history, conveyed themselves to you as strong convictions, and you understood something of the power which dwells in a people who feel thus toward their country, and who share in her control.