"God be thanked!" interrupted Mr. Owen, reverently. "I knew Bennie was not the boy to sleep carelessly at his post."

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They tell me to-day that I have a short reprieve given to me by circumstances-'time to write to you,' our good colonel says. Forgive him, father: he only

does his duty! he would gladly save me, if he could: and do not lay my death against Jemmie; the poor boy is broken-hearted, and does nothing but beg and entreat them to let him die in my stead.

"I can't bear to think of mother and Blossom. Comfort them, father. Tell them I die as a brave boy should, and that, when the war is over, they will not be ashamed

God help me! it is very
God seems near and

of me, as they must be now. hard to bear. Good-bye, father. dear to me, not at all as if He wished me to perish for ever, but as if He felt sorry for His poor, sinful, brokenhearted child, and would take me to be with Him and my Saviour in a better, better life."

A deep sigh burst from Mr. Owen's heart. "Amen," he said solemnly, "Amen."

"To-night, in the early twilight, I shall see the cows all coming home from pasture, and precious little Blossom stand on the back stoop, waiting for me; but I shall never, never come. God bless you all! Forgive your poor Bennie."

Late that night the door of the "back stoop" opened softly, and a little figure glided out, and down the footpath that led to the road by the mill. She seemed rather flying than walking, turning her head neither to the right nor the left, looking only now and then to heaven, and folding her hands as if in prayer. Two hours later, the same young girl stood at the mill depot, watching the coming of the night train; and the conductor, as he reached down to lift her into the car, wondered at the tear-stained face that was upturned toward the dim lantern he held in his hand. A few questions and ready answers told him all; and no father could have cared more tenderly for his only child than he for our little Blossom.

She was on her way to Washington, to ask President Lincoln for her brother's life. She had stolen away, leaving only a note to tell her father where and why she had gone. She had brought Bennie's letter with her; no good, kind heart, like the President's, could refuse to be melted by it. The next morning they reached New York, and the conductor hurried her on to Washington,

Every minute now might be the means of saving her brother's life. And so, in an incredibly short time, Blossom reached the capital, and hastened immediately to the White House.

The President had just seated himself to his morning's task of overlooking and signing important papers, when, without one word of announcement, the door softly opened, and Blossom, with downcast eyes and folded hands, stood before him.

"Well, my child," he said, in his pleasant, cheerful tones, "what do you want so bright and early in the morning?"

"Bennie's life, please, sir," faltered Blossom.

"Bennie! who is Bennie?"

'My brother, sir. They are going to shoot him for sleeping at his post."

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'Oh, yes;" and Mr. Lincoln ran his eye over the papers before him. "I remember. It was a fatal sleep. You see, child, it was at a time of special danger. Thousands of lives might have been lost through his culpable negligence."

"So my father said," replied Blossom, gravely; "but poor Bennie was so tired, sir, and Jemmie so weak. He did the work of two, sir, and it was Jemmie's night, not his; but Jemmie was too tired, and Bennie never thought about himself, that he was tired too."

"What is this you say, child? Come here; I do not understand;" and the kind man caught eagerly, as ever, at what seemed to be a justification of an offence.

Blossom went to him: he put his hand tenderly on her shoulder, turned up the pale anxious face towards his. How tall he seemed; and he was President of the United States too! A dim thought of this kind passed for a moment through Blossom's mind; but she told her simple

and straightforward story, and handed Mr. Lincoln Bennie's letter to read.

He read it carefully; then, taking up his pen, wrote a few hasty lines, and rang his bell.

Blossom heard this order given: "SEND THIS DISPATCH AT ONCE."

The President then turned to the girl, and said, “Go home, my child, and tell that father of yours, who could approve his country's sentence, even when it took the life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks the life far too precious to be lost. Go back, or-wait until tomorrow; Bennie will need a change after he has so bravely faced death; he shall go with you."

"God bless you, sir!" said Blossom; and who shall doubt that God heard and registered the request?

Two days after this interview, the young soldier came to the White House with his little sister. He was called into the President's private room, and a strap fastened 66 upon the shoulder.” Mr. Lincoln then said, "The soldier that could carry a sick comrade's baggage, and die for the good act so uncomplainingly, deserves well of his country." Then Bennie and Blossom took their way to their Green Mountain home. A crowd gathered at the mill depôt to welcome them back; and, as Farmer Owen's hand grasped that of his boy, tears flowed down his cheeks, and he was heard to say fervently, "THE LORD BE PRAISED !."

1

reprieve, the suspension, or putting off, of a sentence (of death). 2 stoop, a kind of verandah, running round the lower storey of a house. incredibly, beyond the bounds of belief.

THE LOST ATLANTIC CABLE.

a-chieve'-ment

1

OUR work was not over. After landing the cable safely at Newfoundland, we had another task-to return to mid-ocean, and recover that lost in the expedition of last year. This 1 achievement has, perhaps, excited more surprise than the other. Many even now" do not understand it ;" and every day I am asked, "How was it done?" Well, it does seem rather difficult to fish for a jewel at the bottom of the ocean, two and a half miles deep. But it is not so very difficult, when you know how.

You may be sure we did not go a-fishing at random, nor was our success mere "luck." It was the triumph of the highest 2 nautical and engineering skill. We had four ships, and on board of them some of the best seamen in England,―men who knew the ocean as a hunter knows every 3 trail in the forest. There was Captain Moriarty, who was in the Agamemnon in 1857-8. He was in the Great Eastern last year, and saw the cable when it broke; and he and Captain Anderson at once took their observations so exact, that they could go right to the spot.

After finding it, they marked the line of the cable by a row of buoys; for fogs would come down and shut out sun and stars, so that no man could take an observation. These buoys were anchored a few miles apart. They were numbered, and each had a flagstaff on it, so that it could be seen by day, and by a lantern at night. Thus, having taken our bearings, we stood off three or four miles, so as to come broadside on, and then, casting over thegrapnel, drifted slowly down upon it, dragging the bottom of the ocean as we went.

At first it was a little awkward to fish in such deep