He took it from its little soiled buckskin sheath, and gave it to Mrs. Manly. She turned pale as she looked at it. Frank was eager to see it, and, almost reluctantly, she placed it in his hands. It might almost have passed for a portrait of himself, only it was that of a girl; and he knew at once that it was his mother, as she had looked at his age. While he was gazing at the singular memento of the old man's romantic and undying attachment, Mrs. Manly looked away, with the air of one resolutely turning her mind from one painful subject to another. "I wish to ask you, Mr. Egglestone, what disposition has been made of--I had another son, you know." He understood her. "I trust," said he, "that what Captain Edney and myself thought proper to do will meet your approval. After the battle, the wife of Captain Manly sent a request to have his body forwarded to her by a flag of truce. We consulted Frank, who told us to do as we pleased about it. Accordingly, we obtained permission to grant her request, and the body of her husband was sent to her." There was for a moment a look, as of one who felt bitter wrong, on Mrs. Manly's face; but it passed. "You did well, Mr. Egglestone. To her who had got the soul belonged the body also. May peace go with it to her desolated home!" "Mother!" whispered Frank, gazing still at the miniature, "tell me! am I right? do I know now why it was the dear old man thought so much of me?" "If you have not guessed, my child. I will tell you. Years ago, when I was the little girl you see there, he was good enough to think _I_ was good enough to marry him. That is all." Frank said no more, but laid the picture on his heart,--for it was his, and the dearest part of the dear old man's legacy. XXXV. CONCLUSION. After a long delay Captain Edney came; apologizing for not appearing to welcome his drummer boy's mother and his old schoolmistress before. His excuse was valid: one of his men, S. Tucket by name, had got into a scrape by running off with one of Uncle Sam's carts, and he had been to help him out of it. He found a new light shining in the hospital--the light of woman's influence; the light of life to Frank and his friend Atwater, nor to them only, but to all upon whom it shone. Mrs. Manly remained in the hospital until her son was able to travel, when leave of absence was granted him, and all his friends crowded to bid him farewell, as he departed in the boat with his mother for the north--for home! Of his journey, of his happy arrival, the greetings from father, sister, little brother, friends--of all this I would gladly write a chapter or two; but he is no longer the Drummer Boy now, and so our business with him is over. And so he left the service? Not he. "I'm to be a Soldier Boy now!" he declared to all those who came to shake him by the hand and hear his story from his own lips.