"No,' was the reply, 'it's no lie, but the honest truth. I've been deceiving you, and everybody else on board.'

"The flogging, of course, at once stopped. But what to do? Was skipper ever in more unpleasant fix? I took the woman out of the fo'castle, where she had lived for four months without her sex having been suspected, and put her in a vacant room in the after part of the vessel, where she has lived ever since. That was five months ago, and this is the first port I have made.

"And now, Mr. Consul," concludes the captain, "you know how I happen to have a woman on board my ship, and you must help me to get rid of her. For get rid of her I must and shall, before I leave this port."

An interesting case, surely, for a Consul who as yet knows next to nothing of his duty, but is bent on maintaining the national dignity, and deeply conscious that eighty millions of eyes are on him! But when one doesn't know what to say or do, it is very wise to say and do nothing. Next to this is an apparent equanimity in every emergency; since few things beget greater confidence on the part of others than seeming confidence in one's self. Quietly therefore remarks the Consul, 'Bring the woman to this office to-morrow morning, when I will hear her story and see what can be done."

The morrow comes. At early office hours enter the captain and an apparently overgrown, awkward boy of eighteen ;-for the woman is still in sailor's garb. Meeting her in the street, few would suspect her sex; as certainly no one seems to when, a little after, she is conducted to the refuge provided her. Yet enough of the womanly remains to give her a shamefaced appearance as she enters the consulate, and confronts one to whom she knows her story has been partially told, and to whom she now must look for aid. At first she is very shy, answering all

questions laconically, and seeming quite as anxious to hide her past as to know her future. But left alone with the Consul, who talks very seriously and kindly to her, her confidence, or fear, or both, are sufficiently roused to induce her to tell, with seeming frankness, her story previous to her shipment. Whether this story be wholly true or largely false, it is impossible to say. Suffice it that it coincides with all hints and chance remarks dropped on shipboard, and with what was afterwards learned. It is told, moreover, with every external indication of honesty, and is substantially as follows:

"My maiden name-for I have been married- -was Georgiana W. I was born and grew up in the city of Baltimore. During my childhood I was subjected to little discipline; my mother was an invalid, and my father was easily coaxed into letting me do almost as I liked. The result was, I became a passionate, headstrong creature, whom no one could well manage, and on whom few had any influence. I had many girlish scrapes and adventures, none of which, however, were seriously compromising, though some of them threatened to be.

"When I was about nineteen-that is, three years ago I became very much in love with a young man named John L. We had long been acquainted, and had had many a tussle together; some of them goodnatured, and some of them not. Our parents were on very good terms, and desirous that we should marry on coming to a suitable age. To this I had no objection, but looked forward to the day when I should be John's wife with great satisfaction. I thought the affection was mutual, and think now that for a while he did, or thought he did, truly love me. We were engaged, and in due time married. And oh, how happy I was for a little while! How fondly I loved my husband! How proud I was of him! What care I took to please him, striving to control my wayward temper! I resolved to be, and I was, a true and loving wife. For a time all things went very pleasantly. John seemed to be as happy as myself. My husband was a mechanic; but he was a good workman, and his weekly earnings were ample to support us as well as we had been accustomed to. There was a prospect also that he would soon have a better situation and a larger salary. I had

the fondest hopes for the future. I could not dream of what was soon to happen.

"Before many months I noticed a change coming over my husband. He seemed less and less happy, and with increasing frequency absented himself from home. What the matter was I could not imagine; and to my eager questions could get only evasive replies. I became anxious and unhappy, and, as any woman would, set my wits to work to unravel the mystery. It was some time, however, before I got any clue to it; for so entire was my confidence in John, that at first I neither suspected, nor would have believed, what I found to be the truth. There is no need of telling how I discovered what the trouble was. I found out that another woman had come between my husband and myself.

"O, Sir"-and here the narrator broke down; her voice shaking, her tears falling, and her whole frame violently trembling. It was some time before she could go on. Recovering self-control she resumed :

"When the fearful conviction of John's infidelity was forced upon me, and my heart's idol was shattered, my consternation, and agony, and wrath seemed beyond endurance. I thought I should go mad, and I certainly longed and prayed to die. Since then, how many times have I wished that I had died! But death doesn't come when a poor soul wishes, and so I lived on. John's frequent and prolonged absences from home, on one pretext or another, enabled me to conceal the knowledge I had gained until I had accumulated evidence against him.

"One night, as he was preparing to leave me, as he now so often did, I begged him most tenderly and piteously not to go away, but to remain at home as he used to directly after our marriage, and when we were so happy. But he was deaf to my entreaties, and shook my hand from his arm, on which I had laid hold. Stung to madness, I taxed him with his crime; told him I had discovered where he went, and whom he had visited so often; and denounced him as a wretch and villain, not content to sacrifice one woman, but seeking to drag another to shame and ruin !

"His surprise at my knowledge of his doings was plain; and with seeming indignation he denied, for a little, the truth of my charges. But he soon saw that I knew too much to be longer deceived. Besides, my vehemence,

and tears, and angry reproaches soon angered him, and induced him to return the epithets with which I assailed him. Our altercation was very violent—almost threatening to disturb the peace of the neighbourhood. After a while, however, and when the first paroxysm of wrath and excitement was over, my husband told me that he had never loved me as a man should love his wife; that he had consented to marry me from regard to his parents' wishes, and my great fondness; that just before our marriage he had first seen the woman he had lately so often visited, and had really fallen in love with her; that when we were married he had resolved to be a faithful husband, and put this woman wholly out of his thoughts; that for a time he succeeded, and that, had he never met her again, he would probably have become wholly indifferent to her; but that, on seeing her again and again, and especially on discovering that she had become very fond of him, he found all his good resolutions of no avail. His love for her had been continually growing stronger, and now had reached that point when, come what would, he should cling to her. Public opinion might denounce; the laws threaten. He did not care. She was his true wife; he was her true husband. For each other they would live and die.

"So saying, he tore himself away, and some weeks passed before I heard anything from him again. What I first heard was that he had enlisted in a cavalry regiment then raising in Baltimore for the Union army. This was in the autumn of 1861, when McClellan was gathering his forces on the Potomac. Hardly sooner did I hear of John's enlistment than the strange fancy seized me to disguise myself in man's apparel, and enlist in the same regiment. I should thus be near him, always know something of his doings, and perhaps at some critical moment be able to render a service that would win far more than his former regard. Moreover, anything was welcome that promised escape from the dreadful condition I was now in. How I should behave in danger I did not know; but I had little dread of death.

"At first the difficulties seemed insuperable. How obtain the garments in which to disguise my sex? How pass the medical examination? How learn to carry myself so as not to excite suspicion and detec

tion? Without telling of all the means I used, and the evasions to which I resorted, suffice it that I succeeded in surmounting all obstacles, and in a few weeks found myself an enlisted soldier in another company of the same regiment with my husband. But, as you may suppose, I kept away from him, being content to watch him as well as I could from a distance.

"And here, though you may hardly believe it, I served for eight months without, so far as I know, my sex ever being suspected. How I got on in camp and saddle, what I endured, how often I seemed on the point of exposure, neither you can imagine, nor describe. With my regiment I went all through the famous Peninsular campaign of last year, and was fortunate enough not only to escape unwounded, but to preserve almost perfect health. Just at the close of that disastrous campaign, and while the army was embarking to return to Washington, I was detailed with others as a guard of honour to attend the dead body of an officer of high rank to New York.

"In that city, and while waiting opportunity to return to the army, we were quartered near one of the large military hospitals filled with sick and wounded men. Sauntering through the hospital one day, thinking it possible that I might find there some of my comrades who had dropped out of the ranks, I was surprised in a way I little expected. There, stretched on one of the cots, lay the pale and wasted form of my husband, to whom I had not spoken since his desertion of me in Baltimore. Apparently he was nigh unto death. He seemed not to have been wounded, but to have been long and seriously sick. The sight caused me to forget at once the character I had been acting; to forget everything but my still deep affection for him, notwithstanding his baseness, and my right to care for him in his illness. Uttering a feeble cry, I should inevitably have discovered myself, heedless of consequences, had not a faintness seized me, robbing me of all power of speech or action, and compelling me to sit down for a little on the first seat that offered. Of course it was easy to ascribe this sudden faintness to the disagreeable odours and distressing sights of a military hospital. And as I did not wholly lose self-control, I carefully kept my face turned from John, assured that there was little danger of recognition by any other.

"O my God,' thought I, 'what shall I do now? Declare myself—a soldier in man's attire the true wife of the sick man before me, and drive the guilty usurper of my rights from the hospital? But who would believe my story? Besides, what good would it do to make myself known? Would it not be better for all concerned to leave them where they were, and hide my wrongs and woes as best I could ?' To regain a measure of selfcontrol, and decide what it would be best to do, I rushed into the open air, and wandered I knew not where. No one could be more indifferent to what might befall. Now I resolved to go back and confront the guilty pair, and assert my wifely rights. Then I would bury my woes beneath the cool waves of the Hudson. Anon I would return to the army, and seek death where it was not hard to find. Thus distracted, and unconscious in what part of the city I was, my attention was first arrested by the sign'Whalemen wanted for a two years' cruise.' At once my resolution was taken. I would ship for a voyage. But how dispose of my uniform? for I could not ship in that. As everybody knows, there are plenty of persons in New York ready to aid a soldier to do that. I was not long in finding one of them; and before night had exchanged my regimentals for a coarse half-sailor's rig that was well suited to disguise my sex, and further my purpose. Then I found no difficulty in enrolling myself as one of the crew