“You mind, miss, don’t you, how the first day you saw him, I told you he didn’t mean to be cross, though the boys thought him so? Well, he told me before he died, how sorry he was they had thought so, but they could never know what agony it was to him to see them come near him; but now he felt that he ought to have tried to bear it all more patiently. Poor Tom! there’s not been many like him here, and there’ll never be any like him to me,” and hard, heavy sobs shook his whole frame. I spoke to him of the comfort he had been to him; of the kind way in which he had watched him, and how we had all noticed it; and won a promise from him, in his softened state, that henceforward he would try so to live as to meet him hereafter; and I really believe that at the time he was sincere; but habit is a fearful thing, and the struggle against a sin so confirmed more fearful still. Some days afterwards, he came to me, when there were others present, and said: “I had a letter from _her_ to-day.” My thoughts were far enough from Darlington at the moment, and I answered, “From whom?” “From _her_, you know!” “And who do you mean by ‘her?’” “His sister, to be sure,” he said, in an injured tone, as though I should have known that, at present, there was but one subject for him. “Oh, have you? What does she say?” “Not now, not now,” he said, looking at the others, as though the grief were too fresh, the subject too sacred, to be mentioned so publicly; “but I just thought you’d like to know.” At a quiet moment, the next day, he begged me to let him tell me what she had written;--her warm, earnest thanks to him for all his love and tenderness to her darling brother; and begging him to plant some flowers where he was laid to rest. This may never be in his power, but there are those who will never forget to care for and cherish the low grave of that young Private. MILITARY HOSPITAL, July, 1862. What matters it, one more, or less? A Private died to-day; “Bring up a stretcher--bear him off-- And take that bed away; Put 39 into his place, It is more airy there; And give his knapsack, and those clothes, Into the steward’s care.” So, it is over. All is done! And, ere the evening guard, Few thought of the Dread Presence That day within the ward.-- Few thought of the young Private, Whose suffering, pallid brow Was knit by torture, not by time,-- Unfurrow’d by Life’s plough. Few thought upon the agony In that far western home, Where he, their hearts’ best treasure, Was never more to come; For Privates have both hearts and homes, And Privates, too, can love; And Privates’ prayers, thank God for that! May reach the Throne above.