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two persons can sit at it, one at each end, without interfering with each other. We can write on separate sheets and from different inkstands; and of late your thoughts have so seldom wandered towards me that any fear of mental interference should scarcely trouble you, I think."

At that she resumed her seat, bowing in somewhat stately manner, and I took my place at the other end; and for some minutes nothing was to be heard but the scratching of our pens, rapidly dotting down our respective thoughts.

- several young men and women," I began, in continuation of what I had written the day before, "who seem to spend most of their time at lawn tennis; which, you must be aware, can scarcely be looked upon as a satisfactory pursuit for one who is in training for diplomacy; and I must confess to having as yet made so little acquaintance among them as scarcely to know their names. I must except, however, from those others, such utter strangers to me, a Miss Jennie McIntosh, the eighth daughter of a Scotch laird now visiting at the house, young lady of singular beauty and accomplishments, and seemingly fitted for any station. I have had many conversations with her and find that contrary to the frivolous creatures around her, she has a singular talent for diplomacy. If you could listen to her exposition of the interior workings of the treaties of Paris and Aix la Chapelle you would say that it was very wonderful. has no property; but with true congeniality of soul

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never so far having heard of you. And you?"

"O, I am writing to my Uncle Arthur. I am thinking of telling him how deeply I am wounded by the captiousness of At least, I suppose I ought to tell him about my dream, it was such a strange one. Shall I

let you hear it first, by the way?"

"If it is very good, and not too long." I arose upon this great encouragement, and came over to her end of the table. As I did so, chancing to cast my eyes at the other side of the room, I saw Father Bede standing in his old place against the bookcase and meekly observing me. I thought that his eyes were a little bloodshot and his posture still somewhat unsteady; but that might have been only my imagination. Certainly he had a very penitent expression, which under the circumstances seemed altogether proper. I felt a little discomposed at the sight of him, for I had supposed that I was entirely alone with Ronaldine, and by a sudden inspiration I had just concluded that here was the opportunity I had long waited for to say a good deal to her; and naturally I did not like the idea of being watched. But on the other hand I was filled with unquenchable ardor of avowal; I felt sure that Father Bede would seek to do me no injury, having shown himself up to that time rather kindly disposed; he was standing so far behind Ronaldine that it was scarcely possible she could see him; after the usual nature of ghosts he must be so constituted as not to be seen or heard by any other than especially designated persons, and it was hardly possible that Ronaldine had been selected for one of those; upon the whole, I could not bring myself to relinquish the happy opportunity, but resolved. to go on determinedly and trust to fortune. Well, this was my dream. It was not meant for myself, I suppose; it really must have belonged to some one else. It was

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"My cousin will be delighted, I am sure; only through the unwarrantable stupidity of

one, who having spontaneously offered his services in the matter might reasonably have been expected to —”

"The saints forgive me! I heard Father Bede mutter, with a still more intensified expression of penitence.

"But I will not enlarge upon that, Ronaldine; I will go on to my dream, in which, by the same peculiar vagary of fancy, I saw myself advancing to myself. It is n't a usual thing for a person to dream that he sees himself, is it? Generally it is some one else; I may say, for instance, that it should have been you- merely, of course, so as to have some else than myself. But here it was my own self that I saw, and I found myself coming forward to myself, a smile on my face as though I were wishing to clear up some misunderstanding or other, not with myself, certainly, for how could a person quarrel with himself, so as to make up with?

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"Really? Perhaps not. In fact, it is rather hard for me to comprehend it, myself. But now, you will tell me your dream in return, will you not?"

"Yes, I had a dream," she said, slowly and reflectively. "Every one seems to have had a dream last night; and somehow, nobody appears to have cared for his own, but wanted some one else's instead. But what my dream was all about, exactly, or how to tell it — "

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mine was yours; and but for the outrageous carelessness of a being whose long experience in such matters should have prevented him from

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My soul cleaveth unto the dust!" Father Bede groaned forth, still more penitently. He appeared so very contrite, indeed, that I began to feel rather sorry for him, and disposed to indicate my forgiveness by a pleasant smile or so. How much more, then, when it suddenly occurred to me that after all I was exceedingly indebted to him for his stupid blundering! It came upon me as a flash; the only wonder was that I had not so understood it before. For with this exchange of dreams had come the full revelation of Ronaldine's real feeling towards me. If I had had merely my own dream what would it have amounted to, other than that my waking aspirations were being pictured out to me in my sleep, perhaps after all never to be realized? But having been given by mistake the dream of another person and I could not doubt that Ronaldine was that other had not her secret longing for my forgiveness been thus revealed to me? her kindly imaginings as she fell asleep been illustrated to my mind instead of hers, exposing with unquestioned certainty her preference for me? I felt that I could have hugged Father Bede to my heart, in my gratitude to him; and really it seemed as though at that very moment his face was lightened a little from its penitential gloom, as though in electric responsiveness to my thought.

"Well, Ronaldine, I will tell you your dream. Perhaps last night you may have fallen asleep with some little feeling of kindness towards one who cares a great deal for you, and how he can best please you, and therefore is sometimes entitled to a kindly feeling. And perhaps you were thinking that once in a while you might have been a trifle too unforbearing with him, since in even his worst moods he could n't have had a single unkind impulse against you; and it

may be that you said to yourself that if he came again with the same old fondness showing itself in every look and action, you would n't any longer speak impatiently to him. Thinking all this, it might naturally have colored your dreams with picturings of that thought. But instead of that, you saw yourself coming towards yourself, with arms stretched out as though seeking for reconciliation, and seeming to ask of yourself, standing there motionless, that there should be forgetfulness of any past estrangement, and a better promise for the future. that something of the nature of your dream?" "I scarcely know I was awake so soon that And really you are as incomprehensible about my dream as your own, it seems to me; and so

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But there was something in her expression which showed me that she understood me a little better than she pretended, and I felt very much encouraged to go on. looking askant into the farther corner of the room, I saw that Father Bede also seemed to be getting a glimmering of the true state of affairs, for his face began to brighten up a trifle more. This was not as it should be, for he had no business to be standing there and listening. As soon as he found that it was a private conversation he should have gone away and left us to ourselves, it appeared to me, and I felt that I should resent it. I did all that I could under the circumstances, for over Ronaldine's shoulder and unperceived by her, I threw at him.

a terrible scowl of indignation; but he did not seem to care for that a bit, but momentarily gained in cheerfulness of expression. Exactly, Ronaldine. But now let me tell you what would have been your dream if everything had gone aright, if the intense obtuseness of one whose plain duty it was to But let that pass, also. You would have seen some one coming towards you just as I have come, we will say, for I suppose that I might as well illustrate the matter as I go along; I am so dull of description, you know, that my story must need illustration some one looking a little like myself, perhaps; not exactly indulging any errant fancy of the moment, but rather one long dream which he hoped would never end, and which had yourself as its centre; coming towards you with hope in his expression, and asking, as I do now, that you would listen to him for a little while; looking into your eyes as he came nearer, and as I am doing, taking your hand in his; trying to believe that he could read in your face something a little responsive to his thought of you; then, still exactly as I am doing, lifting that hand to his lips, and holding it there as his own. So, Ronaldine, from this day forth, let us—"

"Let us rejoice and be glad," exclaimed Father Bede, breaking out into a very sunshine of cheerful smile and turning his head aside with an affectation of great propriety, as he slowly melted away through the bookcase. Leonard Kip.

THE MINOR CHORD.

WHEN years gone by my life was glad The little sorrows that I had

I sang in sad, sweet song;

But grief has grown too real to dare To give it breath in aught save prayer

S. W. Eldredge.no. for Charles S. Greene

J.C.R.

INDIAN WAR PAPERS.-IX.-CLOSE OF THE PIUTE AND BANNOCK WAR.

AT the time of my accident, just related, there were four principal columns, of course none of them large, sweeping all the ground toward the east, toward that country from which the Bannocks had come. The Malheur River is a crooked one. I think some of the French voyageurs must have settled in this region; for, and I think very properly, everything had the word "Malheur" attached to it. There were the "Malheur " country, the "Malheur" reservation, the "Malheur" river, and the "Malheur" city. As with my own immediate force I passed down this river, I found the banks exceedingly rough and rocky, in places almost impassable for animals. We had to make diligent search for grass enough for their subsistence. The next day we broke away from the river, marching due east and passing over a waterless lava-rock plateau for twenty-eight miles. This day there was as far as the eye could reach a singular appearance of nature, owing to a partial eclipse of the sun. For a while everything appeared very much as when the heavens are obscured by the smoke of forest fires, only now the air was pure and the sky was clear. It seemed to the officers and men as if they had been suddenly ushered into another world, conceivably like that in Bulwer's "Coming Age." In a few hours, however, the realities of things were re-established.

Owing to the ignorance or carelessness of a guide, we were at last led out of our direction, and did not succeed in getting to the valley of the Owyhee as we had hoped, and what is always worrisome to tired men, we were forced to make a countermarch of three or four miles, where we had seen water pools at the bottom of a cañon between some ambitious cliffs. By seven o'clock the troops, worn out and not a little

cross, went into camp. I was annoyed to find that I had in some way lost the principal trail, for evidently only eight or ten Indians were ahead of us in the path that we were threading.

The next day was August first. As I had frequently been obliged to do, I asserted my independence of guides, changed my direction to the left, and after a thirty-miles brisk march succeeded in gaining the Owyhee, but was again destined to disappointment, for there was not a spear of grass in the valley of this strange river. So with a feeling of real grief we encamped without a mouthful of food for our overworked and weary animals. The next morning, however, while ascending from the river bed to the high table-land we experienced the joy of the Psalmist, when he came upon the water-brooks, for we sudden- · ly discovered a beautiful spring of clear water, and an abundance of that bunchgrass which makes the horses glad and strong.

When fairly up the mountain steep, we came upon an extensive rolling country full of forage and running springs. The night of the second found us near old Camp Lyons. We bivouacked upon the level shore of a charming little lake. There are three such in that neighborhood. One of the officers, who had passed through that country years before and had been much troubled during the day for fear that we were lost, ascending a high bluff suddenly saw these mirror-like lakes. He cried out, "Now I know where we are: these are the lakes where General Crook, some years ago, had a battle with the Piutes." The one nearest to us, instead of having a euphonic Indian or soft Spanish name, was called Cow Lake.

The third of August led us along through an extensive sage-brush prairie. The march of the day was a short one, for here we struck a telegraph-line. Mr. Holland, our young operator, quickly hitched his instruments to the wire and made telegraphic connection with the outer world. So here, near Mr. Annawalt's, we encamped and before morning had ascertained what the other actively moving troops had been doing.

Major Green, who, it will be remembered, was moving along a parallel trail several miles to my left, had been obliged for some reason to delay at McDowell's Ranch. During the night of the 28th of July some Indians had crept up close to his camp, perhaps within a mile, driven away several horses, and then saucily set fire to a haystack. It was near dawn when Green discovered the fire, but did not know that it was the hay-stack in flames till one of his pickets came in and so reported. Major Green immediately used the trail of these depredators, following it up rapidly in the hope of finding a larger one. This led him straight to the mouth of the Malheur River. He reached the place known as Reinhart's Crossing the evening of the twenty-ninth. There scouting was continued. During the night of July 31st he received several reports, which showed him that somehow hostile Indians had managed to get beyond us and had already appeared in large numbers as far east on the Snake River as Mundy's Ferry, where it was reported that the stage had been stopped and the driver, Mr. Hemmingway, killed.

This is Major Green's dispatch:

"August 1st. I moved to McDowell's Ferry; sent two messengers with the news about the murder to the Department Commander, hoping they [the messengers] would reach him that day, as I believed if he received this dispatch my course would be changed, but unfortunately, the messengers did not find him for several days."

How different officers are in interpreting and obeying commands! Sometimes it is necessary to deviate from literal instruc

tions, in order really to obey the plan and wish of a senior commander. During the Nez Percé campaign, the year before this Bannock war, I received from my senior an order which detached from me a considerable portion of my troops. To obey this order was to imperil and probably defeat the expedition. There was no time to communicate. I did not hesitate. I deviated so far as to send an equivalent detachment, but not the one ordered. I can never forget when my general, months afterwards, solemnly called me to an account for this direct infraction of discipline!

"You did not know what necessity was behind that order, sir!" he said, while looking sternly into my face.

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True," I replied, "but you were two thousand miles from me, and I did just what I knew that you would have done had you been on the spot."

His face relaxed and he said, "Well, I suppose it is necessary to give some discretion to an officer with large command and situated as you were."

But Major Green would never risk so much; his designated route lay toward Camp Lyons, and thither he bent his way, till when six miles distant he received instructions to turn to the left and go at once to Mundy's Ferry. Fortunately while I was separated from the telegraph lines my second in command, Colonel Wheaton, at Baker City, had heard of the stage-line outrage, and so took the responsibility of sending a message to Green not only to go to Mundy's Ferry, but beyond, if necessary, following up our fourth column under Captain Egbert.

Egbert, on the north side of the Snake, had succeeded in finding the largest trail. He had put his men into wagons and rushed on like the hostiles themselves at forty and fifty miles a day. A part of the main hostiles, not more than a hundred, emerging from their hiding-places in that Malheur country, had kept themselves south

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