A merry crowd of our old friends are gathered at the mansion and just in the act of sitting down to a dinner, given by Mrs. Tompkins in honor of her oldest son's wedding, which took place a week before at New Orleans. Many of our old friends are seated around that table. There is Howard Jones, with a scar of a saber cut on his face, but merry as ever. By his side sits Seth Williams, with an armless sleeve dangling at his side, but the same jolly Seth as of yore. Our friends of both armies are met here, though all have laid aside their uniforms and appear in citizen's garb. Corporal Grimm is as anxious as ever to relate to everybody his experience with "General Preston," and Sergeant Swords is ready to second Grimm in any thing. Colonel Mortimer is there, erect and soldier-like, and our friend Diggs also, a representative of both parties. The little fellow is dressed with the utmost care, his shirt front and high collar aggressively stiff, and his glasses on his round, silly face. He confides to every one that he has tired of the patent medicines and photography, and that he intends to start a country newspaper, which eventually shall startle the world.
There are the brothers, Abner and Oleah, with all their old brotherly affection renewed, and Irene and Olivia, types of the two classes of beauty. It has been arranged that Oleah and Irene are to live on her father's plantation in North Carolina, while Abner and Olivia remain on the old homestead.
The good minister, whose saving prayer had proved so effective in Diggs' case, is seated at the head of the table. Mrs. Tompkins, in widow's weeds, is at the foot. She has lost her brilliant beauty and her political ambition; she thinks that the happiness of the world depends on domestic peace, and that this can be secured only by perfect unanimity of feeling between husband and wife.
Olivia Tompkins is happy in the love of husband and father and her new-born babe, and she has come to the same conclusion.
To see the happy mingling and general good feeling of those who wore the gray and those who wore the blue, it is hard to think they once were enemies. We had almost forgotten Uncle Dan, who has retired to his cabin on the Twin Mountains, but he is with the others, always the same Uncle Dan, whether hunter, scout, or wedding guest. They sit at the common table—the soldier of the North and the soldier of the South—as though they were, as they are, of one family.
Dear reader, we have written late into the night, and now, as the faces of these friends, whom we have followed so long and learned to love so well, fade from our sight among the shadows, let us rejoice that the time has come, when this great Nation, North and South, is united once more in the firmest bonds of friendship—one brotherhood.
[THE END]
OUT OF THE MIRE,
many a family has been raised by the genuine philanthropy of modern progress, and of modern opportunities. But many people do not avail of them. They jog along in their old ways until they are stuck fast in a mire of hopeless dirt. Friends desert them, for they have already deserted themselves by neglecting their own best interests. Out of the dirt of kitchen, or hall, or parlor, any house can be quickly brought by the use of Sapolio, which is sold by all grocers.