worth writing I will mention it in my next letter to you. "Aunt Conway and Bruce join me in love to you all. My warmest love to brother Willie and Grace, to both of whom I shall shortly write. Be careful of your health, dearest mother, I beg, and write early and often to your devoted daughter, "LULU C. CONWAY." CHAPTER XXV. THE PATHOS OF A QUIET LIFE. "Oh, being of beauty and bliss! seen and known In the depths of my soul, and possessed there alone! My days know thee not; and my lips name thee never; Thy place in my poor life is vacant forever. We have met; we have parted. No more is recorded In my annals on earth." --FROM LUCILLE. Captain Clendenon is taking an afternoon cigar. He has stepped out of the hospital, where, thank God! there are fewer patients and less need of him now, for a stroll in the fresh air, and while he meanders down the principal thoroughfare, he lights a Havana and enjoys his walk. In financial panics one sees a crowded thoroughfare, with people rushing hither and thither, and blockading the banks; in pestilential panics one sees silent, deserted streets, and dreary, deserted-looking buildings. This is all that meets Willard's gaze as he stops on the corner, man-fashion, and looks idly up and down at the occasional passers-by, for human faces are the exception, not the rule. Now and then a man goes by, looks hard at him, and nods respectfully. He is very well known here as the noted Norfolk lawyer who has so nobly volunteered in the cause of suffering humanity. Not a woman but looks twice at the tall figure, with its fine military bearing, its handsome head, set so grandly on its broad shoulders, its empty, pathetic coat-sleeve pinned across the left breast. Old death has been at work here. Those whom he has not mowed down with his awful scythe have fled, terrified, beyond his present harvest-field. There are places of business closed--some of whose owners are abroad in other cities, others of whom are holding commerce now with the worm and the grave. Here and there a school-house is closed, the most of whose little pupils have gone to learn of the angels. It is the dreariness of desolation, and as he puffs meditatively away, these familiar lines of Hemans come into his thoughts: "Leaves have their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath, And stars to set, but all, Thou hast all seasons for thine own, oh, death! We know when moons shall wane, When summer birds from far shall cross the sea, When autumn's hue shall touch the golden grain-- But who shall tell us when to look for thee?" "A penny for your thoughts, Captain Clendenon," says a fresh, young voice, and a small hand taps him on the shoulder.