’No, Annie, not free.  My sword will be free, but my heart will
    still linger here, a prisoner.  But when the war is over, and the
    old flag restored—­’

    ‘Then,’ and here her eyes were filled with the glorious light of
    prophetic hope, ‘I will be your prisoner.’

    And still Hugh is fighting for the dear old flag; and still Annie
    is praying for it, and waiting for the sweet imprisonment.

There has been many as sweet a romance as this, reader, acted ere this, during the war.  Would that all captivity were as pleasant!

* * * * *

‘I would not live alway,’ says the hymn, and the sentiment has, like every great truth, been set forth in a thousand forms.  One of the most truly beautiful which we have ever met is that of

  THE CITY OF THE LIVING.

  In a long-vanished age, whose varied story
    No record has to-day,
  So long ago expired its grief and glory—­
    There flourished, far away,

  In a broad realm, whose beauty passed all measure
    A city fair and wide,
  Wherein the dwellers lived in peace and pleasure
    And never any died.

  Disease and pain and death, those stern marauders,
    Which mar our world’s fair face,
  Never encroached upon the pleasant borders
    Of that bright dwelling-place.

  No fear of parting and no dread of dying
    Could ever enter there—­
  No mourning for the lost, no anguished crying
    Made any face less fair.

  Without the city’s walls, death reigned as ever,
    And graves rose side by side—­
  Within, the dwellers laughed at his endeavor,
    And never any died.

  O, happiest of all earth’s favored places! 
    O, bliss, to dwell therein—­
  To live in the sweet light of loving faces
    And fear no grave between!

  To feel no death-damp, gathering cold and colder,
    Disputing life’s warm truth—­
  To live on, never lonelier or older,
    Radiant in deathless youth!

  And hurrying from the world’s remotest quarters
    A tide of pilgrims flowed
  Across broad plains and over mighty waters,
    To find that blest abode,

  Where never death should come between, and sever
    Them from their loved apart—­
  Where they might work, and will, and live forever,
    Still holding heart to heart.

  And so they lived, in happiness and pleasure,
    And grew in power and pride,
  And did great deeds, and laid up stores of treasure,
    And never any died.

  And many yers rolled on, and saw them striving
    With unabated breath,
  And other years still found and left them living,
    And gave no hope of death.

  Yet listen, hapless soul whom angels pity,
    Craving a boon like this—­
  Mark how the dwellers in the wondrous city
    Grew weary of their bliss.