OFFICERS and men that for four years struggled to tear down the Stars and Stripes, are to-day proudly planting Old Glory over a land oppressed by cruelty. In the words of Commodore Dewey, "There is no South, no North, but one united country."

  Old lines of differences are forever obliterated.

  Descendants of Lee and Grant shouldered arms, and have been standing side by side, doing battle, at the will of the American Government.

  And in this cause of humanity men that were once bound by the yoke of servitude are taking an active part.

  Southern negroes have now enjoyed the blessings of freedom for more than thirty years, yet their faithfulness and devotion remain fresh in the minds of former owners; even as the harrowing scenes depicted by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe continue to attract throngs of men, women, and children to theatres and halls.

  Those of the race that were born slaves will soon have passed away, therefore I deem it a fit

  My resolution to write Lydia's history came unexpectedly to me while visiting in Edinburgh, Scotland. One evening, at dinner, our party were discussing national dishes, when my vis-a-vis inquired of me what, with us, corresponded to their haggis.

  "Hog and hominy," I answered.

  "Then you must be a Southerner!" she exclaimed.

  "Yes, an old-fashioned slave-owner; happily reconstructed, however, so as not only to rejoice, but be harmless."

  My friend's little girl, sitting near, looked up with a startled expression. Oblivious to her surroundings, she laid aside her knife and fork, pushed her chair from the table, and hastened to her mother's side. "Was she really a horrid slave-owner?" she faltered. Then her tears fell freely.

  Only a few days before, she had, for the first time, it appeared, witnessed the theatrical representation of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

  But the pathetic words of this innocent child awakened me; she little knew that the very institution by which my life was once surrounded, had been established first in America by her own English-speaking ancestors. I determined there and then to write Lydia's life as I knew it.

  So, dipping my pen into the inkstand of Slavery days, homely scenes of joy and sadness are narrated as they really happened in the life of one of God's black angels, whose wings were stained by sin.

E. J. B.