“It was there you left your arm, then, poor fellow,” said Kellett, taking him kindly by the hand. “Come in and sit down; I'm Captain Kellett. A fellow-soldier of Jack's, Bella,” said Kellett, as he introduced him to his daughter; and the young man bowed with all the ease of perfect good-breeding. “You left my brother well, I hope?” said Bella, whose womanly tact saw at once that she was addressing her equal. “So well that he must be back to his duty ere this. This letter is from him; but as he had not many minutes to write, he made me promise to come and tell you myself all about him. Not that I needed his telling me, for I owe my life to your son, Captain Kellett; he carried me in on his back under the sweeping fire of a Russian battery; two rifle bullets pierced his chako as he was doing it; he must have been riddled with shot if the Russians had not stopped their fire.” “Stopped their fire!” “That they did, and cheered him heartily. How could they help it! he was the only man on that rude glacis, torn and gullied with shot and shell.” [Illustration: 166] “Oh, the noble fellow!” burst out the girl, as her eyes ran over. “Is n't he a noble fellow?” said the soldier. “We don't want for brave fellows in that army; but show me one will do what he did. It was a shot carried off this,” said he, touching the empty sleeve of his jacket; “and I said something--I must have been wandering in my mind--about a ring my mother had given me, and it was on the finger of that poor hand. Well, what does Jack Kellett do, while the surgeon was dressing my wound, but set off to the place where I was shot down, and, under all that hailstorm of Minié-balls, brought in the limb. That's the ring,--he rescued it at the risk of his life. There's more than courage in that; there's a goodness and kindness of heart worth more than all the bravery that ever stormed a battery.” “And yet he left me,--deserted his poor father!” cried old Kellett, sobbing. “If he did so, it was to make a name for you that the first man in England might be proud of.” “To go off and list as a common soldier!” said Kellett; and then, suddenly shocked at his own rudeness, and shamed by the deep blush on Sybella's face, he stammered out, “Not but I've known many a man with good blood in his veins,--many a born gentleman,--serving in the ranks.” “Well, I hope so,” said the other, laughing with a hearty good-nature. “It's not exactly so common a thing with us as with our worthy allies the French; but every now and then you'll find a firelock in the hands that once held a double-barrelled Manton, and maybe knocked over the pheasants in his own father's preserves.” “Indeed, I have heard of such things,” said Kellett, with a sigh; but he was evidently lending his assent on small security, because he cared little for the venture. “How poor Jack loves you!” cried Bella, who, deep in her brother's letter, had paid no attention to what was passing; “he calls you Charley,--nothing but Charley.”