hand to her, and she took it and pressed it
warmly.

"You are going now," he said, "to a new
life. May I still be your friend?"

A new life! What did he mean by those
words? Lily knew not as yet; but to his last
entreaty she replied, with deep emotion:

"I shall ever think of you, ever love you, ever
be grateful to you."

And seated in the mourning coach beside Jean
Baptiste Constant, she was carried away to her
new home.

A WAIF FROM DIXIE.

SOILED, battered, torn, worn, and travel-stained,
comes my package of Mobile newspapers.
They are printed on half sheets of
whity-brown cotton waste paper, fuzzy, rotten,
and barely legible. But full of fight. The first
advertisement in the first paper I open is,
"Army Blanks!" The next column begins with
a call for "More men for Gen. Morgan!" the
adventurous cavalry officer, the news of whose
death came by a recent steamer. At the head
of the first column of reading matter is a
Proclamation of the Governor of Alabama to the
People of Mobile. Farragut was thundering at
the outer gates, thirty miles off down the bay,
and the governor says, " Your city is about to
be attacked by the enemy. Mobile must be
defended at every hazard, and to the last
extremity. All who cannot fight must leave the
city. The brave defenders of the city can fight
with more energy and enthusiasm when they feel
assured that the noble women and children are
out of danger." The Mayor of Mobile enforces
the appeal. Finally, Major-Gen. Maury
complains that the non-combatants show no
disposition to leave. There is no apprehension
that the soldiers will not fight. The difficulty
is to get the women out of the fight. News
from the enemy's fleet. News from invading
armies. The Siege of Charleston runs like a
popular play at a London theatre, and we read
the events of the " Three hundred and forty-sixth
day." A shell burst in Pickens-street—
negro boy slightly wounded. Shell buried itself
in Moultrie-square—boys rushed with spades to
dig it up. Unexpected explosion, and general
scatteration. Nobody hurt.

Amid this din of arms, if the laws are silent,
the muses are not. A Southern maiden writes
a war-song to her lover. She gives him her
faith, but not her hand. She tells him that

No marriage bells must ring for us
   Till our dear land is free.

She tells him to " go forth into the field," and
that she intends to be " a hero's bride;" and
she wishes him to go at once, and be quick about
it:

Now, now, while Freedom's trumpets blow,
  While Freedom's banners wave,
And call on all to meet the foe,
  Shrink not, thou Southern brave.

No shrinking is to be permitted. If any one
does shrink or show the white feather in the
slightest degree,

Let not that wretched coward dare
  Address a Southern maid.

And all whom it may concern are given very
explicitly to understand that

Our hearts are only for the brave,
  Our hands are for the free.

Which means that they must not only fight, but
fight to the purpose, or, as it is more rhythmically
expressed,

March on, where glory's banners wave,
  March on to victory.

Nor has Bellona driven Thalia and Melpomene
from the field. The theatre is open. Its actors
and actresses rank with the non-combatants, but
they also have declined to leave. The big guns
are thundering down the bay, but they will
play The Rough Diamond and Lucrezia Borgia,
the Battle of Bosworth Field and the Honeymoon.
Literature flourishes. There is a
circumstantial advertisement of " Mrs. Lirriper's
Lodgings." Brigadier General Chalmers
denounces the story that he has speculated in
cotton as "a base and cowardly lie," and for
this language holds himself "personally
responsible to any gentleman who may feel
himself aggrieved thereby." Better save his powder
for the enemy at the gates. Three soldiers
advertise " An Extortioner." They say: " We, the
undersigned, took breakfast yesterday morning
at the French restaurant of one P. Jourdan, on
St. Michael-street. Our fare consisted of tripe,
hash, venison steaks, six eggs, bread, butter,
and rye coffee, for which the said P. Jourdan
charged us twenty-four dollars." Then follow
their names and qualities—privates in a
Kentucky and two Mississippi regiments. Barring
the rye coffee it seems a good breakfast enough,
and enough of it, and the rather extravagant
price may be in part accounted for by a
depreciated paper currency. Confederate soldiers,
breakfasting at a French restaurant on venison
steaks, &c., should arrange for a fixed price,
or breakfast à la carte. It maybe hoped,
however, that soldiers who eat and pay in that
fashion, will fight accordingly.

The blockade does not wholly exclude foreign
merchandise. Mr. Clarke of Royal-street, an odd
name in a republican city, advertises English
note and letter paper, Gillott's steel pens,
London ink, and Faber's pencils. Matches are
offered at five dollars a gross. There are long
lists of the cargoes of blockade runners for sale,
and they carry very miscellaneous cargoes,
consisting of linen and cotton goods, silks, alpacas,
claret, sweet oil, tea, coffee, soap, lots of
cotton cards for the domestic manufacturers
of the plantations, morphine, quinine, and
all things hard to make, and not easy to do
without. Among the other sales advertised are
a "tip-top man" of thirty, one of eighteen
"very likely," and one fifty-five " very reliable"
—what the Northerners call " a reliable contraband."
Among the women is " a fine cook