His services as engineer had been highly appreciated by the people of the South, and a writer of the period said: "The time will yet come when his superior abilities will be vindicated, both to his own renown and the glory of his country." The time was now at hand when these abilities, if the individual possessed them, were to have an opportunity to display themselves.
XII.
LEE'S LAST INTERVIEW WITH BISHOP MEADE.
A touching incident of Lee's life belongs to this time--the early spring of 1862.

Bishop Meade, the venerable head of the Episcopal Church in Virginia, lay at the point of death, in the city of Richmond.

When General Lee was informed of the fact, he exhibited lively emotion, for the good bishop, as we have said in the commencement of this narrative, had taught him his catechism when he was a boy in Alexandria.

On the day before the bishop's death.

General Lee called in the morning to see him, but such was the state of prostration under which the sick man labored, that only a few of his most intimate friends were permitted to have access to his chamber.