"Have I not spoke the live-long day, And will not Lucy deign to say One word her friend to bless? I ask but one--a simple sound, Within three little letters bound, Oh let that word be YES." Lucy answered in the affirmative, and so they parted. Lucy Fleming, the only daughter of a clergyman of the Scottish Church, lived at her father's secluded manse in Berwickshire, among woods that lie on the margin of the Tweed, in a beautiful and sequestered glen, where tidings of the distant strife came but seldom, save when the Laird of Overmains, and Rowchester, or some other neighbouring proprietor, sent "with his compliments to the minister" an old and well-read copy of the _London Gazette_, or more probably the_ Edinburgh Evening Courant_, "sair thumbed by ilka coof and bairn;" for newspapers were few and scarce in those days, and the tidings they contained were often vague, marvellous, or unsatisfactory. But Lucy was only eighteen; and she lived in hope, while her lover in a crowded and miserable transport was ploughing down the North Channel, making a vain attempt to remedy sea-sickness by brandy and water, endeavouring to forget his melancholy among comrades who were full of bilious recollections of the last night's hock and champagne, and were seeking to drown their sense of discomfort in rough practical jokes, mad fun, and fresh jorums of _eau de vie_. Done in the best style of Sir John de Medina, a famous foreign artist, who in those days resided in Edinburgh, and who now sleeps there in a quiet corner of the old Greyfriars Kirk-yard, a miniature of Lucy in a gold locket, with a braid of her black hair, was White's best solace; and for many an hour he lay in his swinging hammock, apart from all, gazing upon the soft features Medina's hand had traced. This miniature cost our poor subaltern half-a-year's pay; but the prize-money of Trichinopoli had paid for it; and now when rocking far, far at sea, oblivious of the ship's creaking timbers, the groaning of blocks, and jarring sounds of the main-deck guns, as they strained in their lashings; the whistling of the wind through the rigging; and the varied din of laughter, occasional oaths and hoarse orders bellowed from the poop, he abandoned himself, lover-like, to the sad and pleasing employment of poring over that little memento, until the dark hazel eyes seemed to smile, the red lips to unclose, the light of love and joy to spread over all her features, and her parting tears seemed to fall again, hot and bitterly from her cheek upon his; yet the last recollection of his dear little Lucy was her pale, wan face, with eyes red and swollen by weeping, as she stood on the stone stile of the old kirkyard wall, when he bade her farewell, just as the lumbering stage from Berwick bore him away, perhaps--for ever.