sat long upon the porch, there was no resumption of conversation. Each was immersed in thought, each was depressed in spirit, and each went to his bed only to pass a restless and troubled night.

The next day but one was the Fourth of July. Early in the morning there came down to the Bannister homestead the dull echo of the firing of the little old village heirloom of a cannon, which the boys had dragged up to the top of a ledge back of the town, and with which they were accustomed, on Independence Day, to rouse their sleeping neighbors. There was to be a celebration at the village, of course. There had been a celebration on the Fourth of July at Mount Hermon from a time whereof the memory of the oldest inhabitant ran not to the contrary. There were to be[34] speeches, the band was to play, the glee club was to sing. All day, in the basement of the town hall, the young ladies were to sell refreshments and fireworks for the benefit of the Soldiers’ Relief Fund.

Yet there was no spirit of cheerfulness or rejoicing in the air. The times were too tense. The strain of conflict was too great. The mightiest battle of the Civil War was on at Gettysburg. For two days, across the streets and up the heights of that quaint Pennsylvania village, the armies of Meade and Lee had clashed and striven with each other, until the uncovered dead lay by ghastly thousands, and every hollow in the hillside held its pool of blood. Rumors of victory and rumors of disaster crossed and recrossed each other on the way from the battle-field to the villages of the North. Mount Hermon hardly knew what to believe. She was positive only of this: that two score of her sons were down there in the Army of the Potomac, and that in all human probability some of them, many of[35] them indeed, were wounded, dying,