a long up-hill walk; but he looked right onward, with expressive, dark-gray eyes slightly elevated, and the curious, puckered lines around his mouth and chin strengthened, and the square-cut beard of the jaw and chin meeting the square of the temple locks and crown-mane, formed three inflexible sides of a square; and the well-cut nose and angle of the cheek-bones receiving the light of his purpose to go on with the geometry, made Senator Pittson say:

"You will live to square it—yes, to cube it.”

The President turned to Mr. Booth and put his hand upon his arm, with an open, country look of his substantial mouth, while his stiff, black hair seemed to soften, and his heavily marked eyebrows to take the light of his smile.

"Booth, give me a little Shakespeare! Do you believe Shakepeare wrote his own works? They say Seward writes all my messages."

This last remark was caused by the Secretary of State entering, to be ready to present the expected notabilities. He was introduced to the young men, and joined in the talk with address and merriment shining up a somewhat faded face.

Booth had been studying Marc Antony, to make an appearance soon with his two elder actor brothers in New York-of whom the only distinguished one was to vote for President Lincoln's re-election-and John Booth rehearsed:

"I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.

When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept :
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

But here's a parchment, with the seal of Cæsar :
Let but the commons hear his testament,

...

...

And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds,

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory.

Mr. Lincoln clapped his hands, and made Mr. Seward shake hands with the reciter, and cried :

"Ah! Billy wrote Shakespeare. Some say he wasn't educated

enough; but there's poor white knowledge in Billy, that Lord Bacon wouldn't have had. Whenever I heard anything original at the Illinois bar, it was from a poor fellow who read. his law books under the shade of a tree where he stopped after he had borrowed them. He would give us law and anecdotes, and use as bad law and as good human nature as Portia or Imogen."

The President began from Imogen:

"I see a man's life is a tedious one.

Plenty and peace breed cowards; hardness ever

Of hardiness is the mother."

The expected guests had been delayed, and the President went on reciting from Shakespeare at many points, seeming to have a knowledge of all his works, and inviting Booth to " come on with something better.

"Ah, Mr. President," spoke the actor, giving Mr. Lincoln all his rich, dark, beaming face to enjoy, "if I could only commit my parts as you can commit everything!"

"Shakespeare, my eloquent young friend," replied the President, "is always wise and lovely, but Burns was the poet of the people. Shakespeare seems to teach you, but Burns to eat with you and sleep in your bed."

He started Burns with

"Then let us pray, that come it may,

(As come it will for a' that),

That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,

Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.

For a' that, an' a' that,

It's comin' yet for a' that,

That man to man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that."

"Seward," said the President, "don't you wish a man like Burns was the foreign minister of England? But we have friends wherever that poetry is believed, and, I think, nowhere else-not even here."

The President continued to conduct himself like a boy among boys, showing that he knew Burns "by heart," as he said; and his heart and merriment recited together, until it was announced that the notabilities were coming.

"Before we go, Mr. President," said Senator Pittson, "I want to ask you for a pass for Mr. Beall—it was always pronounced Bell— to visit some kin in lower Maryland."

"Oh! the provost can give him that-however, Pittson, here is my card."

The President wrote on it, and spelled the name "Bell." The pass was without limit as to time.

As they arose to go, they saw the strange princes enter with their ministers, and the Secretary of State introduce the President, in the elegant room set for that purpose, and Lincoln wore the dignity and stature of a natural monarch.

At the portal, going out, Booth and Beall stumbled upon two men-one bleached, large-eyed, and walking on a crutch; the other smaller, and wearing spectacles.

“Mr. Stanton, good-morning," said Booth to the last.

Good-morning Mr. John Booth, and Mr. John Beall," spoke the other tall and invalid man. "When did you, Mr. Beall, lay down your arms?"

"Oh, some time ago, Major Luther Bosler," replied Booth; "he's all right now, and has the President's pass."

"The President's pass," spoke the war minister sternly, "is no pass at all. What right have you, as a good citizen, to take up our kind magistrate's time with giving passes against his own safety and ours?—Major Bosler, have this man report at the war office to-day!"

He pointed to Beall and passed in.

"We will go to the National Hotel, where we stop, and meet you there-Luther," spoke Booth.

'There are other things I may want to see you for when I come," remarked Luther Bosler, slowly, looking them both gravely

over.

He passed into the President's mansion.

Booth stopped a passing cab and bade the driver go hard to his hotel.

You are in a tight place, John," he said, "but their police system is very loose, and I can get you out."

"I should think so," replied Beall; "why, any assassin could reach Abe Lincoln's side. I believe he could be run out of this city on his own pass and delivered up in Richmond.”

Booth sat back in the carriage pale and silent; they were both

excited, for the gallows might be very close to Captain Beall and the Old Capitol Prison close to Mr. Booth.

They reached the hotel and passed to Booth's room on an upper floor. He threw out to Beall a suit of countrymen's clothes and a false whisker.

"Actor's wardrobe," explained Booth, carelessly. "Here is Abe Lincoln's pass. What did you think of him?”

"Coarse chuck, but all intellect. That's the way with this North: it isn't much for stock, or manners, or disinterestedness, but it runs to brain like the cauliflower to a head."

"John Beall," said the actor, all flushed and with compressed features, "that man is the most cunning fanatic and hypocrite in the world. See how he read Shakespeare! I want you to lift up your right hand and swear to me that you will never use for yourself, without my knowledge and control, the idea you just now expressed."

"What idea?"

"That old Abe Lincoln can be abducted from Washington and carried to Richmond."

Pshaw! It was a mere reflection. Nobody would attempt it." 'Swear!" hissed Booth; "swear, or you shall not leave this

city!"

'You're mad, I reckon." Beall finished his toilet.

'That's the idea I had at the grave of John Brown, when I asked you what Lincoln would be worth as a hostage.

Then I had never seen him in his household as we have to-day. Your reflection has confirmed my idea and observation, and I want to preempt it here. Swear that you will acknowledge me the author of the proposition to abduct Abraham Lincoln !"

"Why, certainly; and that you're a fool, too."

Beall held up his hand and removed his old white slouched hat. Booth clasped him in his arms and whispered:

"My fortune's made! I'll carry the Yankee Washington and show him all over the South as a feature of my star engagement. By God! I'll make him recite Shakespeare, and pay him a salary or shares. I want you to make the secret proposition for me to the Confederate President when you reach Richmond. The man I shall ask for to conduct the enterprise is—"

"Not Lloyd Quantrell?"

"The very man!”

Why that's the man I want sent to Canada to command my expedition."

66

Let him choose between us," spoke Booth. "He is under oath to us, since John Brown's raid, to revenge the South, and we'll kill him if he shirks his vow!"

66

"Come," said Beall, looking with pinched wonder at Booth's demoniac face, as he stood with a great knife unclasped, and blazing eyes, like Shylock starting to cut Antonio's heart's flesh out.

When they descended the stairs, Major Luther Bosler was seen by the front door of the hotel.

"Come by the back way," said Booth. "I'll get you out.”

He whispered to a hotel clerk, who conducted them through some kitchen apartments to a large, hollow, stable court, out of which ran two alleys, but not in line with each other. Taking the alley to the left, they entered a quiet street in the rear of the hotel, where two common inns stood among livery-stables.

"This farther tavern," said Booth, "is the stage-office for Port Tobacco and Leonardtown. Go in there and take a room, and leave Washington by the next stage. You have the highest pass in the land. Remember!"

Booth went around the corner of the National Hotel, and, entering the front door on Pennsylvania Avenue, met Senator Pittson and Luther Bosler talking in the hotel lobby.

"Mr. Beall has gone to his people in the Valley," Booth said. "Friend Bosler was not too polite with him."

"Mr. Booth," spoke Edgar Pittson, quietly, "I forbid your further visits to my daughter."

CHAPTER XLI.

GRASS WIDOWS.

JAKE BOSLER would have been lonely and heart-broken from Katy's loss, but that his son had become a great man about the government, and had given him honest employment in such wide measure that he was growing rich.

Thousands of horses the old man bought among the Dunkers of the East and West and sold them at the regulation price in Balti