“Amen!” replied Hapgood, who was watching the operation in full sympathy with his protege.

“Eh! what’s this?” added Tom, for his foot had met with an obstruction in its passage down the leg.

He pulled off the sock, and thrusting his hand into it, took therefrom a letter enclosed in an envelope.

“See that, uncle?” said he, exhibiting the prize.

“What is it, Tom?  Open it quick,” replied Hapgood.

The soldier boy broke the envelope, and took from it a note enclosing a photograph.  Tom looked at the picture with a feeling of pleasure, which would have caused the original of the miniature, the author of the note, and the author of the socks, to blush up to her eyes if she had beheld the expression of admiration which glowed upon the handsome, manly face of the young sergeant.

“By all that’s lovely, isn’t she a beauty!” exclaimed Tom, rapturously, as he glanced from the picture to Hapgood, who was looking over his shoulder.

“She’s hahnsome, and no mistake,” replied the veteran, with a grim smile.

“Well, she is!” added Tom, whose eyes were riveted to the photograph.

“Well, why don’t you read the letter, Tom?” demanded the old soldier, after the young man had gazed with blushing cheek upon the sweet face of the author of his socks for full five minutes.

“I guess I will,” said Tom; but he did not; for the picture seemed to be glory and beauty enough to satisfy him for the present.

“Read the letter, Tom!” shouted the veteran, after he had waited as long as the nature of the case seemed to require.

The soldier boy carefully placed the photograph in the envelope, and unfolded the letter.  It was written in a beautiful hand, which looked as soft and delicate as the fair fingers which had penned the lines.  He glanced at it as a whole, admired the penmanship, and the fairy-like symmetry that make up the tout-ensemble of the page, and was about to dissolve into another rhapsody, when Hapgood, who was not half so sentimental as the sergeant, became impatient to know the contents of the missive.  Tom read it aloud to the stoical veteran; and though we cannot clothe its sweet words in the fairy chirography which transported our hero, and made the letter a dream of bliss to him, we shall venture to present it to our curious readers, stiffened and hardened into the dull, cold forms of the printer’s art.

    No.——­, RUTLAND STREET, BOSTON, Nov. 5, 1861.

    MY DEAR SOLDIER:—­

This is the first pair of socks I ever knit; and I send them to you with my blessing upon the brave defenders of my country.  I hope they will keep your feet warm, and thus keep your heart warm towards God and our blessed land.

Grandma says I am a silly girl, and I suppose I am; but if you feel half as much interest in me as I do in the person who will wear the first pair of socks I ever knit, you will wish to know