the Vice-president and the Senate discharged their duty in an orderly manner.

When it became an assured fact that the vote would be counted, the President-elect was ready to start on his journey to Washington. With Mrs. Lincoln he had paid a brief visit to Chicago, and there she bought for the inauguration the first silk dress she ever owned. As they were unpacking their purchases, after their return home, the husband remarked: "Well, wife, there is one thing likely to come out of this scrape anyhow. We are going to have some new clothes."

As he was about to leave Springfield to assume the exalted station to which he had been called, he did not forget the simple woman who had brought sunshine into his desolate boyhood, whose faithful hands had clothed him, and who had given him a chance to go to school and learn his letters. His good stepmother was still living, and he was loyally caring for her in her old age.

He now turned from his high honors and heavy tasks to visit her in her home. The people came out in great crowds to cheer him on his way to his humble destination. When his brief visit was finished, the noble woman parted from him with gloomy forebodings. She feared his enemies would kill him. In the throng of old neighbors and

friends who poured into his office at the State House to bid him farewell, Hannah Armstrong came from Clary's Grove. She, too, was filled with anxiety for his safety.

Lincoln had found a tenant for his house and had sold its furnishings. This dwelling, together with a piece of land in Iowa which he had received from the government as a reward for his service in the Black Hawk War and a house lot in Lincoln, Illinois, a town which had been named for him, constituted the whole of his property. In its entirety it would have brought ten or twelve thousand dollars. He had so little ready money, however, that he was forced to borrow in order to pay his expenses in the White House, until he could draw the first quarterly instalment of his salary as President.

On his last day in Springfield he went to the old law office in the little back room, where his great duty had found him, and there stretched himself on the well-worn lounge. As he gazed up at the dusty ceiling, he feelingly recalled to his partner their long association, in which they never had a "cross word."

Then he referred in a sentimental vein to their sign, which had swung on its hinges until it was nearly covered with rust, and he asked "Billy," as he called Herndon, to let it hang there until he

came back from Washington, and then they would go on practising law just as if he never had been President.

Rising and walking to the door, however, he spoke of a presentiment that he would not return alive. Herndon chided him for his lack of philosophy. "But," he insisted, "it is in keeping with my philosophy." Turning away with a mournful face, he walked down the stairs and passed under the creaking sign for the last time.

GOING TO WASHINGTON

a sot.

Lincoln's eloquent farewell to his Springfield neighbors, February 11, 1861. "Not knowing when or whether ever I may return." His journey eastward. His greeting to a little girl, at whose suggestion he had grown a beard. - Caricatured as Coldly received in New York. Pleading for the threatened Union. His solemn pledge at Independence Hall on Washington's birthday. - Warned of a plot to murder him as he passed through Baltimore. -Stealing into Washington in the night. His unexpected arrival at the capital at dawn, February 23.

LINCOLN, standing on the rear platform of his special car in the train that was about to bear him away to Washington, lifted his hand as a signal for silence. He stood there, a solemn figure, and a spell fell upon the neighbors who had gathered at the Springfield station on a chill and dreary February morning to bid him farewell.

He had removed his hat and they, too, bared their heads to the falling snowflakes. While he gazed at them in silence for several seconds, his lip quivered with grief and there was a tear on his cheek. When at last he had summoned the strength to speak, his husky tone added to the impressiveness of the few sad words he chose for the leave-taking:

"My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried.

"I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail.

“Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell."

The train pulled away, followed by the brimming eyes of the people, and, until it had disappeared from their view, they could see Lincoln, still standing on the platform of his car, looking at the little town where fame had sought him out.

In his young manhood he had walked its streets, a barefoot law student. In one of its halls he had

sounded the warning that a house divided against