reels of cotton; she had a shallow gash upon her cheek; she was wringing her hands. They were at work from the outside, sawing entrances through the labyrinth of planks. A dead woman lay close by, and Sene saw them draw her out. The other side of the slanting flooring some one prayed aloud. She had a little baby at home; she was asking God to take care of it for her, "for Christ's sake," she said. Sene listened long for the "amen," but it was never spoken. Del cried presently that they were cutting them out. The glare of the bonfire struck through an opening; saws and axes flashed, voices grew distinct. The opening broadened, brightened; the sweet night wind blew in; the clear night sky shone through. Sene's heart leaped within her. Out in the wind and under the sky she should stand again after all. She worked her head from under the beam and raised herself up on her elbow. At that moment she heard a cry-" Fire! fire! God Almighty help them! The ruins are on fire!"

A man had dropped a candle and the ruins were on fire. That was at nine o'clock. What there was to be seen, from then till morning, could never be forgotten. A network, twenty feet high, of rods, of beams, pillars, stairways, roofing, ceiling, walling; wrecks of looms, shafts, bobbins, mules-locked and intertwined; wrecks of human creatures wedged in; a face that you knew, turned up at you from some pit, which twentyfour hours' hewing could not open; a voice you knew crying after you from God knows where; a mass of long fair hair visible here, a foot there; three fingers of a hand over there; charred limbs and helpless trunks tossed about; the little yellow jet that flared up, and died in smoke, and flared again, leaped out, licked the cotton bales, tasted the old machinery, crunched the netted wood, danced on the heaped-up stone, threw its cruel arms high into the night, roared for joy at helpless firemen, and swallowed wreck,

death and life together out of your sight-the lurid things stand alone in the gallery of tragedy.

The child who had called for her mother began to sob out that she was afraid to die alone.

"Come here, Mollie,' said Sene; "can you crawl around?" Molly crawled around.

"Put your head in my lap, and your arms about my waist-so, there."

But they had not given them up yet. In the still unburned rubbish at the right, some one had wrenched an opening within a foot of Sene's face. They clawed at the solid iron pintles like savage things. A fireman fainted in the smoke.

"Give it up!" cried the crowd from behind. "It can't be done! fall back"-then hushed, awe-struck. An old man was crawling along on his hands and knees over the heated bricks. He was a very old man. His gray hair blew about in the wind. It was Sene's father.

"I want my little girl!” he said. "Can't anybody tell me where to find my little girl?"

A rough fellow pointed in perfect silence through the smoke.

"I'll have her out yet. I am an old man, but I can help. Hand me that dipper of water; it'll keep her from choking, maybe. Now, keep cheery, Sene, your old father'll get you out. Keep up good heart, child. That's it."

"It's no use, father. Don't feel so bad, father. I don't mind it very much." He hacked at the timber; he tried to laugh; he bewildered himself with his cheerful words.

"No more ye needn't, Senath; for it'll be over in a minute. Don't be downcast yet. We'll have ye safe at home before ye know it. Drink a little more water; do now. They'll get at ye now, sure."

But out above the crackle and the roar a woman's voice rang like a bell:

"We're going home to die no more."

A child's notes quivered in the chorus. From sealed and unseen graves white young lips swelled the glad refrain:

"We're going, going home."

The crawling smoke turned yellow, turned red; voice after voice broke and hushed utterly. One only sang on like silver. It flung defiance down at death. It chimed into the lurid sky without a tremor. For one stood beside her in the furnace, and his form was like unto the form of the Son of God. Why should not Asenath sing?

""Senath," cried the old man, out upon the burning bricks; he was scorched now from his gray hair to his patched boots. The answer came triumphantly, "To die no more, no more, no more."

"Sene, little Sene!"

Some one pulled him back, and her spirit went up in the flames. -Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

UNCLE DANIEL'S INTRODUCTION TO A MISSISSIPPI STEAMER.

Whatever the lagging, dragging journey may have been to the rest of the emigrants, it was a wonder and delight to the children, a world of enchantment; and they believed it to be peopled with the mysterious dwarfs and giants and goblins that figured in the tales the negro slaves were in the habit of telling them nightly by the shuddering light of the kitchen fire.

At the end of nearly a week of travel the party went into camp near a shabby village which was caving, house by house, into the hungry Mississippi. The river astonished the children beyond measure. Its mile-breadth of water seemed an ocean to them, in the shadowy twilight, and the vague riband of trees

on the further shore the verge of a continent which surely none but they had ever seen before.

66

"Uncle Dan'l" (colored), aged 40, his wife, "aunt Jinny," aged 30, 'Young Miss" Emily Hawkins, "Young Mars" Washington Hawkins and "Young Mars" Clay, the new member of the family, ranged themselves on a log, after supper, and contemplated the marvellous river and discussed it. The moon rose and sailed aloft through a maze of shredded cloud-wreaths; the sombre river just perceptively brightened under the veiled light; a deep silence pervaded the air and was emphasized, at intervals, rather than broken, by the hooting of an owl, the baying of a dog, or the muffled crash of a caving bank in the distance.

The little company assembled on the log were all children (at least in simplicity and broad and comprehensive ignorance). Their voices were subdued to a low and reverent tone. Suddenly Uncle Dan'l exclaimed: "Chil'en, dah's sumfin a comin'!"

All crowded close together and every heart beat faster. Uncle Dan'l pointed down the river with his bony finger.

A deep coughing sound troubled the stillness, way toward a wooded cape that jutted into the stream a mile distant. All in an instant a fierce eye of fire shot out from behind the cape and sent a long brilliant pathway quivering athwart the dusky water. The coughing grew louder and louder, the glaring eye grew larger and still larger, glared wilder and still wilder. A huge shape developed itself out of the gloom, and from its tall duplicate horns dense volumes of smoke, starred and spangled with sparks, poured out and went tumbling away into the farther darkness. Nearer and nearer the thing came.

"What is it? Oh! what is it, Uncle Dan'l?" With deep solemnity the answer came:

"It's de Almighty! Git down on yo' knees!" It was not necessary to say it twice. They were all

kneeling in a moment. And then the negro's voice. lifted up its supplications:

"O Lord, we's ben mighty wicked, an' we knows dat we 'zerve to go to de bad place, but good Lord, deah Lord, we ain't ready yit-let dese po' chil'en hab one mo' chance. Take de ole niggah if you's got to hab somebody. O Lord, spah de little chil'en, don't tar de little chil'en away f'm dey frens, and take it out'n de old niggah. HEAH I IS, LORD, HEAH I IS! De ole niggah's ready, Lord, de ole—”

The flaming and churning steamer was right abreast the party, and not twenty steps away. The awful thunder of a mud-valve suddenly burst forth, drowning the prayer, and as suddenly Uncle Dan'l snatched a child under each arm and scoured into the woods with the rest of the pack at his heels. And then, ashamed of himself, he halted in the deep darkness and shouted (but rather feebly):

"Heah I is, Lord, heah I is!"

There was a moment of throbbing suspense, and then, to the surprise and comfort of the party, it was plain that the august presence had gone by, for its dreadful noises were receding.

"Well, now dey's some folks say day aint no 'ficiency in prah. Dis chile would like to know whah we'd a ben now if it warn't fo' dat prah? Dat's it!" "Uncle Dan'l, do you reckon it was the saved us?" said Clay.

prayer that

"Does I reckon? Don't I know it! Whah was yo' eyes? Warn't de Lord jes' a comin' chow! chow! CHOW! an' a goin' on turrible-an' do the Lord carry on dat way 'dout dey's sumfin don't suit him? An' warn't he a lookin' right at dis gang heah, an' warn't he jes' a reachin' for 'em? An' d'you spec' he gwine to let 'em off 'dout somebody ast him to do it? No indeedy!" 66 Do you reckon he saw us, Uncle Dan'l?"

"De law sakes, chile, didn't I see him a lookin' at us?"