"With that some several p'licemen run up, and I had to simmer down. But I would a fit any fool that laid hands on me, for I was bound to hear Ruby out or die.

"He had changed his tune agin. He hopt-light ladies and tip-toed fine from eend to eend of the key-board. He played soft, and low, and solemn. I heard the church bells over the hills. The candles in heaven was lit, one by one. I saw the stars rise. The great organ of eternity began to play from the world's end to the world's end, and all the angels went to prayers. Then the music changed to water, full of feeling that couldn't be thought, and began to dropdrip, drop, drip, drop-clear and sweet, like tears of joy fallin' into a lake of glory.

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He stopt a minute or two, to fetch breath. Then he got mad. He run his fingers through his hair, he shoved up his sleeves, he opened his coat-tails a leetle further, he drug up his stool, he leaned over, and, sir, he just went for that old pianner. He slapt her face, he boxed her jaws, he pulled her nose, he pinched her ears, and he scratched her cheeks, till she farly yelled. He knockt her down and he stompt on her shameful. She bellowed like a bull, she bleated like a calf, she howled like a hound, she squealed like a pig, she shrieked like a rat, and then he wouldn't let her up. He run a quarter-stretch down the low grounds of the bass, till he got clean into the bowels of the earth, and you heard thunder galloping after thunder, through the hollows and caves of perdition; and then he fox-chased his right hand with his left till he got away out of the trible into the clouds, whar the notes was finer than the pints of cambric needles, and you couldn't hear nothin' but the shadders of 'em. And then he wouldn't let the old pianner go. He fetchet up his right wing, he fetcht up his left wing, he fetcht up his center, he fetcht up his reserves. He fired by

rile, he fired by platoons, by company, by regiments, and by brigades. He opened his cannon, siege-guns down thar, Napoleons here, twelve-pounders yonder, big guns, little guns, middle-sized guns, round shot, shell, shrapnel, grape, canister, mortars, mines, and magazines, every livin' battery and bomb a goin' at the same time. The house trembled, the lights danced, the walls shuk, the floor come up, the ceilin' come down, the sky split, the ground rockt-BANG! "With that bang! he lifted hisself bodily into the ar', and he come down with his knees, his ten fingers, his ten toes, his elbows, and his nose, strikin' every single solitary key on that pianner at the same time. The thing busted and went off into seventeen hundred and fifty-seven thousand five hundred and forty-two hemi-demi-semi-quivers, and I know'd no mo'."

SARAH ANNE DORSEY.
1829-1879.

MRS. DORSEY, daughter of Thomas G. P. Ellis, was born at Natchez, Mississippi, and was a niece of Mrs. Catherine Warfield who left to her many of her unpublished manuscripts. She was finely educated and travelled extensively. In 1853 she was married to Mr. Samuel W. Dorsey of Tensas Parish, Louisiana. Here she found scope for her energies in the duties of plantation life. She established a chapel and school for the slaves, and her account of the suc cess of her plans gained her the title of "Filia Ecclesiae' from the "Churchman." She afterwards used "Filia" as

a pen-name.

Their home being destroyed during the war in a skirmish which took place in their garden, and in which several men

were killed, Mr. and Mrs. Dorsey removed to Texas. They afterwards returned to Louisiana; and in 1875, upon the death of Mr. Dorsey, Mrs. Dorsey made her home at "Beauvoir," her place in Mississippi. Here she spent her time in writing, and also acted as amanuensis to Jefferson Davis in his great work, "Rise and Fall of the Confederacy." At her death, which occurred at New Orleans, whither she had gone for treatment, she left "Beauvoir" by will to Mr. Davis and his daughter Winnie.

Her "Life of Allen" is of great historical and biographical

A CONFEDERATE EXILE ON HIS WAY TO MEXICO, 1866.

(From Recollections of Henry W. Allen, Ex-Gov. of Louisiana.*)

The people wept over Allen's departure. They followed him with tears and blessings, and would have forced on him more substantial tokens of regard than words of regret. They knew he had no money-his noble estates had long been in possession of the enemy; hundreds of hogsheads of sugar had been carried off from his plundered sugar-houses; his house was burned, his plantation, a wide waste of fallowfields, grown up in weeds. He had nothing but Confederate and State money. One gentleman begged him to accept $5,000, in gold, as a loan, since he refused it as a gift. Allen accepted five hundred. With this small amount, his ambulance and riding-horses, he started to Mexico. His journey through Texas was a complete ovation, instead of a hegira. Everybody, rich and poor, vied with each other

* By permission of J. A. Gresham, New Orleans.

in offering him attention and the most eager hospitality. The roof was deemed honored that sheltered his head for the night. He stopped at Crockett, to say "goodbye."

This conversation occurred whilst we were returning from a visit to Gov. Moore's family. I had driven over to their cottage in a buggy, to invite them to join us at dinner. Allen had accompanied me.

I

These exiles were personal friends of mine. I suffered in parting with them: for some I suffer still-for those who are still absent and still living! Everything was very quiet and still, nothing audible but the low murmur of our voices, when suddenly arose from the prairie beyond us, one of the beautiful, plaintive, cattle or "salt" songs of Texas. These wild simple melodies had a great attraction for me. would often check my horse on the prairies, and keep him motionless for a half-hour, listening to these sweet, melancholy strains. Like all cattle-calls, they are chiefly minor. I thought them quite as singular and beautiful as the Swiss Ranz des Vaches, or the Swedish cattle-calls. They consisted of a few chanted words, with a cadence and a long yodl. Sometimes the yodling was aided by what the Texan boys called "quills "-two or more pipes made of reed-cane (arundinaria macrosperma). This made a sort of limited syrinx, which gave wonderful softness and flute-like clearness to the prolonged tones of the voice, as it was breathed into them. The boy sang one of his saddest "calls." I looked quickly to see if Gov. Allen had noticed the melancholy words and mournful air. I saw he had. He ceased talking, and his face was very grave.