Mr. Burns was also present on that occasion. Shall I say it? A thrill of joy shot through him at the announcement; joy, if it must be spoken, that Hiram had proved a dissembler and a hypocrite. His year would expire the coming week. Not a syllable had he said on the subject to Mr. Burns, and he had concluded on this method of acquainting both Mr. Burns and Sarah of his fixed determination.
The latter part of the walk was measured in silence. Some faint perception of the truth was beginning to dawn in Sarah's mind. Her father's spirit began to assert itself in her breast.
Mr. Burns walked slowly along a little behind. It was tea time when they entered the house. He went for a moment to his room. He had scarcely entered it, when the door opened and his daughter came in. She ran up to her father; she threw her arms around his neck; and while she wept bitterly, Joel Burns could hear between the sobs:
'_Oh, father, father, your child has come back to you!_'
Little lady wants a President all smile and style and grace; Little master wants a Talleyrand or Crichton in the place; Little simpletons want this and that to fill the nation's chair; But the times want ABRAHAM LINCOLN--and, thank GOD, they have him there!
Our large debt and vast expenditures demand a resort to every just available source of national revenue. Among these are our mineral lands of the public domain, and especially those yielding gold and silver. On this subject, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, Judge Edmunds, on the 16th of April last, addressed a letter to the Committee of Public Lands of the Senate, from which I make the following extract:
'For a half century prior to the California gold discoveries in 1848, the annual gold yield of the world was, by estimate, from sixteen to twenty millions of dollars, of which Russia produced more than one half. In 1853 the gold product of California was $70,000,000. * * * * Annual yield, estimating upon reported shipments, was $50,000,000, to which by adding two fifths for quantity taken by private hands, besides that converted into articles of ornament and use, the total average would be seventy millions a year. The immense discoveries of gold, silver, quicksilver, tin, copper, lead, iron, and coal, within our limits, justify the estimate that our mineral riches exceed the aggregate metallic wealth of the globe. In a state of peace, with adequate revenue from ordinary sources, the Government has interposed no obstacle to the free access of our citizens and of the people of every nation, to work the mines, of which the United States are the undisputed owners, and by which individuals, in the aggregate, have realized some nine hundred millions of dollars.'