"Good-by, my friend," said George. "Tell my lord that nothing but the urgency of the case prevented me from giving myself the happiness of seeing him, and that no day has passed since he sent you with me that I have not thanked him in my heart for your company."
A subtle quiver came upon Lance's rugged face.
"Mr. Washington," he said, "I thank you humbly for what you have said; but mark my words, sir, the time will come, if it is not already here, that my lord will be thankful for every hour that you have spent with him, and proud for every step of advancement he has helped you to."
"I hope so, my friend," cried George, gayly, and turning to go.
Lance watched the tall, lithe young figure in hunting-clothes, worn and torn, riding jauntily off, until George was out of sight. Then he himself struck out for Greenway Court. Four days afterwards a tattered figure rode up to Mount Vernon. The negroes laughed and cried and yah-yahed at seeing "Marse George" in such a plight. Spending only one night there, in order to get some clothes and necessaries, he left at daybreak for Williamsburg, where he arrived and reported to the Governor, exactly eleven weeks from the day he started on this terrible journey.
[to be continued.]
[TURKEY, "THE SICK MAN."]
BY V. GRIBAYÉDOFF.
It is now forty-three years since Czar Nicholas I., in conversation with the British ambassador at St. Petersburg, referred to Turkey as the "Sick Man," and suggested that Great Britain and Russia deal him his death-blow and divide up his heritage. We all know that Great Britain not only rejected the proposition, but, with France and Turkey as allies, not long after declared war on the Russian Empire. This Crimean war cost the great powers engaged in it thousands and thousands of men and millions and millions of money, and when peace was signed in 1856, Russia found herself deprived of some territory on the Roumanian frontier and of the right to maintain a fleet in the Black Sea.