“Ah, ah! and a soldier’s wife,” responded James; “isn’t she, John?” And John, thinking James had been telling a story, laughed his little laugh as usual. “Worthy to be anything, thank God,” said the sergeant-major; but the expression of his face changed; it lost its flush and its proud glance of triumph; anxiety for his only child obliterated even the memory of “Toulouse:”—the soldier was absorbed in the father,—and he continued, “No: I should not like her to be a soldier’s wife, Jem, I should not; she hasn’t strength for campaigning. It killed her poor mother; they said it was consumption; but it was no such thing. It was the wet and dry, heat and cold, ups and downs of campaigning; she would not leave me—not she: it is a wonderful thing, the abiding love that links a frail, delicate woman to the rough soldier and his life of hardships; and such a loving mother as she had, and such a home; she never heard anything louder than the ripple of the mountain rill, and the coo of the ringdove, until, a girl of seventeen, she plunged with me into the hot war. You remember her, Jem?” The sergeant-major’s seventeen years of widowhood had not dried up the sources of his grief; he drew his hand across his eyes, and then began, hastily and with a tremulous hand, to fit the laurel leaves, which he still held, one within the other. “That I do—remember her—and well;” answered James Hardy. “What is it?” inquired old John. James made him understand they were speaking of poor Mrs. Joyce. “Ah!” said John, “she was an angel,—Miss Lucy is very like her mother—very like her—even to the way she has in church of laying her hand on her heart—so,—as if it beat too fast.” “She does not do _that_, does she, James?” inquired the sergeant-major, eagerly; “I never saw her do _that_.” “Likely not,” replied James; “John sees a deal more than those who hear; he is obliged to amuse himself with something; and, as he cannot hear, he sees.” The sergeant-major paused, and his companions with him; he became abstracted—the leaves dropped from his fingers—and, at last, turning abruptly away, he retraced his steps homewards. [Picture: Chelsea physic garden with statue of Sir Hans Sloane]