CHAPTER THIRD.

'ANOTHER extra! Great battle on the Chickahominy! Victory of McClellan !' The shrill cry of the newsboys shouting the electric word 'Victory!' awoke Clarice from her slumber on a certain memorable night in June, when, in every street, windows were thrown up excitedly, and men arose from their beds to procure the record of another battle.

We all remember how the admirable plans of McClellan were foiled for want of sufficient means to carry them out; how on the very verge of success, when Richmond, the coveted goal, seemed easy of attainment, an over-sanguine expectancy prepared the anxious hearts at home to give ready credence to the first extravagant rumors of victory; followed speedily by the frightful lists of killed and wounded, and tardy admissions that, on the whole, the tourney between two great belligerent generals had resulted in a drawn game after all; and soon after by the memorable seven days' fight and the famous retreat, when all McClellan's skill was necessary to save our army from destruction in the deathbreeding swamps of the Chickahominy. Full of a sickening apprehension, Clarice and her mother waited for news from 'the boys,' and their brave young leader, Carleton Ashe. First appointed to a lieutenancy, left vacant by a recent battle in the Regiment, Maine Volunteers, his native State, he was detailed from thence almost immediately to act as aid to his friend, the general before mentioned, who had not enjoyed his companionship long, when Carleton was elected to the captaincy of his company, its commander having been compelled to resign from ill-health. Captain Ashe soon exerted his influence to procure positions in the same regiment for the brothers of Clarice, then entitled to promotion. After this came the battle of Williamsburgh, in which Carleton con

tributed to the success of our arms by his intrepid bravery; rallying again and again his little handful of exhausted men by words of lofty cheer, and by an example of heroic daring, that earned him the admiration of the whole command, and his promotion to the majority, one of the many positions left unfilled after the sorrowful record of our loss had been made.

And now had been fought the battle of Fair Oaks? The excitement, while waiting for official reports, was intense. At last came the lists of the killed and wounded. Foremost among the latter was the name of Carleton Ashe. His regiment had been fearfully reduced. Early in the fight its leader had been conveyed from the field mortally wounded, and the command devolved on Carleton, who bravely won the glory that flashed brilliantly through the smoke of battle as he fell, grasping the colors he had taken from a dying standard-bearer but a moment before.

With a great sigh of relief, the widow reached the last name of the terrible list. 'Thank God! the boys are safe. Be comforted, Clarice, my dear child. Do not look so, darling. He is not mortally wounded.'

Clarice pointed to the column over which her fingers had closed so convulsively. 'It is dangerous, mother.' And the frightened look gave place to an expression of indescribable sadness, as, with white lips, she added: 'And I cannot go to him.'

Poor Clarice! As soon as mail communication was open with the army, a letter came from her eldest brother. 'We are both well, dear mother,' it said; 'but Major Ashe was struck in the thigh. He was brave even to rashness, but there was not one of us but would have followed such an example. Tell Clarice not to worry. The bone is not shattered, and he will do very well. A flesh

told him that I desire to have no claim upon him, save that with which his own affection invests me. But I am not afraid,' she added proudly; 'while he has perfect faith in me, I know he will never cause me to resign that claim.' A sad foreboding fell upon the mother's heart, as she gazed upon her child, now radiant with the beautiful light of a perfect and trusting love. Too well she knew that the faith must be strong indeed which could outlive the shocks that were brought to bear against Carleton, and her voice grew tremulous as she said:

'And you can trust him, Clarice, notwithstanding the ever-watchful influence of one who is your enemy, though his own most devoted mother?'

'Yes, I can trust him at all times with my love, with my life. But,' continued she, musingly, 'does not 'mother' mean sacrifice? Yet she prefers to seal the unhappiness of her own son rather than yield her wishes in this. Am I so very objectionable, mother?'

With fast-dimming eyes, Mrs. Wylmer looked on the anxious face, now upturned in a gaze of intense and painful wonder. Did she really doubt her own right to be loved at that moment? A mother's love can never fail you, my darling.' And the widow's tones were scarce audible, as she smoothed the soft cheek tenderly; her own sweet face growing wistful, and a mighty yearning throbbing in the anxious heart, as she thought of her innocent child, suffering undeserved from the shafts of envy and malice.

Clarice wrote every day, though with a sad doubt in her mind whether her lover would be able to read the eloquent words that poured forth unrestrained from her heart. How she implored his forgiveness for the bitter words that pride had dictated in her answer to the last letter she had received from him! How touching were her expressions of grief, that she could not be near him to comfort and soothe the weary hours of pain he must suffer away from her side! How she implored

him to trust unfailingly in the love that only her pen could express, no matter what might betide! All in vain-those messengers, freighted with such priceless wealth, never reached him, till long after the fatal shafts had been struck, that were destined to probe to its very depths the heart of Carleton Ashe.

Days went by; days of patient waiting and endurance; days of anguish and tears, that shook the very life of Clarice with their silent but pitiless force. Then came a letter, written in feeble characters, from the sick-bed at Point Lookout, where he had been sent to a healthier hospital.

'Why do I not hear from you, Clarice? It is very hard; more than ever, now I am unable to write to you.'

But a few more words followed, expressive of his delight that Mrs. Ashe had obtained permission from the Government to attend him; having even volunteered to act as army nurse for that purpose. He concluded by wishing that she, too, could be there, and, the characters growing more unsteady as weakness overcame him, signed himself as ever her 'most devoted Carle.'

What was it that turned the warm life-current back to her heart-that sent an icy feeling of dread into the fainting spirit, as she closed the letter she had hailed with such glad joy a few moments before?

His mother was with him, and he had not received her letters!

'No, no,' thought Clarice, discarding the thought as unworthy of her the moment it arose; 'I will not so judge his mother. Whatever her opposition to me, she would not do that. Oh! if she would but love me!' And with failing heart she wrote again; unable with all her efforts to avoid a stiffness of expression most painful to herself, and which she knew would grieve her lover.

It was only natural. In fancy she saw those cold, unsympathizing eyes, full of a strong opposing will, bent upon the words of love meant for his eye alone, and withheld or conveyed them

with a cautious tone most foreign to her nature. Once, in the fulness of her heart, she wrote some passionate lines full of a sweet and earnest love, but fraught with intense sadness. They reached the doubting lover in his abode by the bleak waters of the Chesapeake, and, his mind having received in its season of weakness a subtle but far-reaching doubt of her sincerity, he laid them down with a sigh and a pang for their beautiful unrealities. Alas! that such a love should be marred by suspicion! Alas! that even a mother should so influence a son, as to sink honor and manhood in a sea of ignoble doubts and mistrust!

With the most persistent energy Mrs. Ashe urged Carleton, while weakened both in body and mind by suffering, to relinquish a love which she affirmed was interested and false. Interested? Yes, in its own pure growth and sustenance, but true as the needle that ever points to the North. Always before he had defended Clarice against such attacks, with all the impassioned ardor of which he was capable; now, unable to bear up against the tide of argument, of almost positive conviction, brought to bear upon him, he wavered. The citadel had not been stormed in vain. Mrs. Ashe would gain her point, and then - but she must be cautious yet. It was hard to make her son believe that she, who had seemed to him all innocence and truth, could be a hypocrite-could be so consummate an actress in her portrayal of an assumed character. Mrs. Ashe did not really be lieve it herself. It was not possible, brought up as Clarice had been, in ignorance of the world, all unknowing and unthinking of the breakers that dash upon its coast. It was not possible, with such a mother, on whose brow purity and the dignity of true womanhood sat enthroned; and ignore it as she would, it was recognized and felt by one who could yet call that mother a schemer and a hypocrite.

With returning strength, the natural resistance of a noble nature to the weak

and unworthy again asserted itself in the mind of Carleton Ashe. He sought to convince his mother, as he was convincing himself, that for Clarice to be what she said, was a moral impossibility. He even showed her some of the letters that, almost instinct with the very nature of his betrothed, breathed such a constant and touching desire for her love, while lamenting the blind preju dice which shut her out from all hope of recognition. But a more powerful ally than the weakness she had fostered in the mind of her son was possessed by Mrs. Ashe, as we shall presently see. Carleton was never more mistaken than in the anticipation with which he unfolded those carefully-guarded treasures. He had unveiled the holy of holies, the most consecrated shrine of their mutual love-and for what? For the smile of derision, the merciless ridicule of one who professed to believe that the ut terances of a pure and devoted affection were but masterly deceptions, creations of a fertile imagination, already wedded to falsehood and design.

'Her pen is a terrible weapon against me!' Mrs. Ashe had exclaimed, when declaring to one of her friends her intention to separate her son from Clarice; and now she said to that son: 'She pretends to feeling that she does not pos

sess.

The very day after her brothers left, and she appeared to be in such distress, she was boisterously merry.'

had

Not so, Mrs. Ashe. The hired spy, whose services you had secured, was incapable of understanding even the external life of this poor victim of slander. The days for boisterous merriment' were over for Clarice; and you helped to crush the free, bright spirit that was gifted with an elastic power, which kept it alive through shock after shock of grief, till it glimmered fainter and fainter, and at last became entirely subdued,

Yes, it was even so. Spies had been set over Clarice to watch and misrepresent her every act and word; and one, baser than the rest, had undertaken to