The Last Leaf

at last was finely magnanimous and it was a pleasant scene, at the inauguration of March 4, 1861, when Douglas sat close by holding Lincoln's hat. There was an interview between the two men behind closed doors, on the night the news of Sumter came, of which one would like to have a report. Lincoln came out from it to issue, through the Associated Press, his call for troops, and Douglas to send by the same channel the appeal to his followers to stand by the Government. What could the administration have done without the faithful arms and hearts of the War Democrats? And what other voice but that of Douglas could have rallied them to its support? Had he lived it seems inevitable that the two so long rivals would have been close friends--that Douglas would have been in Lincoln's Cabinet, perhaps in Stanton's place. This, however, is not a memory but a might-have-been, and those are barred out in this Last Leaf.

Daniel Webster came home to die in 1852. He was plainly failing fast, but the State for which he st