"Well, how are things going down your way? Your letters do more to keep me going, and keep me going cheerily, than any other mortal thing. How do you manage to instil such a breath of sweetness and vigour between such thin sheets of paper? Last night I dreamed that you were sitting in the shadows here singing to me. It was a hot, breathless night, but I could smell the syringa bushes in your garden shrubbery, and I seemed as if I were enveloped in your atmosphere. Some time ago I was cursing the gift of memory; now I am blessing it, for it brings me you. Am I receding farther and farther in the cells of your memory? But no; you are more than good in corresponding with me, and I will not think so meanly of your friendship, which you gave so frankly and warm-heartedly. Excuse this scrawl; my right arm is in a sling. "Remember me to the Admiral. I would like a chat with him out here. I enjoyed the society of the soldiers whilst we had them. I put up the colonel and major in my quarters, and discovered that the major had been in my old regiment years ago. We had quite a gossip over old times. I always feel a pang when I think of my exit from the Service. Fighting in politics is such a different thing from real warfare. "Now they have gone, and I am left undisputed king of my domain, with piles of correspondence to wade through, and reports to write to about twenty different departments. I am neither fish nor fowl, civilian nor soldier, and, ergo, I have a variety of masters to serve and can manage to please none. The chances are that I may come back like a bad halfpenny to old England. What would your welcome be like, I wonder? It opens a vista of conjecture and possibility to me. Well, I shall for the present go on with my building, and if I can get this spot wholesomely sweet before I leave it, I shall have done as much as I expected to do. "Your rather weary fellow builder— "RANDOLPH NEVILLE." Sidney read the greater part of this aloud to her father. "Men always take things so lightly," she complained. "Now, if that had been a woman who had written, we should have had the fighting in awful reality. She would have drawn a vivid picture of the whole; but Mr. Neville dismisses it in a few words." As she was speaking, Gavine was ushered into the room. She brought up a letter from George Lockhart which she had received by the same mail, so Sidney had her desire given her, for George gave many details about his chief, and told exactly how he was shot in carrying a wounded soldier to safety.