We promised him we would not, as well as we could, for we were both choked with sorrow; and then he said, talking quickly: "Give poor old Sam Measles my 'bacco-box, Ike, the brass one, and shake hands with him for me; and now I want Mother Bantem." She was by his side directly, to lift him gently in her arms, calling him her poor gallant boy, her brave lad, and no end of fond expressions. "I never had a bairn, Harry," she sobbed; "but if I could have had one, I'd have liked him to be like you, my own gallant, light-hearted, soldier boy; and you were always to me as a son." "Was I?" says Harry softly. "I'm glad of it, for I never knew what it was to have a mother." He seemed to fall off to sleep after that, when, no one noticing them, those two children came up, and the first I heard of it was little Clive crying: "Ally Lant, Ally Lant, open eyes, and come and play wis elfant." I started, and looked up to see one of those little innocents, his face smeared, and his little hands all dabbled with blood, trying to open poor Harry Lant's eyes with his tiny fingers. "Why don't Ally Lant come and play with us?" says the other; and just then he opened his eyes, and looked at them with a smile, when in a moment I saw what was happening, for that poor fellow's last act was to get those two children's hands in his, as if he felt that he should like to let his last grasp in this world be upon something innocent; and then there was a deepening of that smile into a stern look, his lips moved, and all was over; while I was too far off to hear his last words. But there was one there who did hear them, and she told me afterwards, sobbing as though her heart would break. "Poor Harry, poor light-hearted Harry," Mother Bantem said. "And did you see the happy smile upon his face as he passed away, clasping those two poor children's hands--so peaceful, so quiet, after all his suffering; forgetting all then, but what seemed like two angels' faces by his dying pillow, for he said, Ike, he said--" Poor Mother Bantem broke down here, and I thought about what Harry's dying pillow had been--her faithful, old, motherly breast. But she forced back her sobs, and wiped the tears from her rough, plain face, as she said in low, reverent tones: "Poor Harry! His last words: `Of such is the kingdom of heaven.'" Death was very busy amongst our poor company, and one--two--three more passed away there, for they were riddled with wounds; and then I saw that, in spite of all that could be done, Lieutenant Leigh would be the next. He had received his death wound, and he knew it too; and now he lay very still, holding tightly by Miss Ross's hand, while she knelt beside him.