"He did not answer. I repeated the question; no reply. I was perplexed. Could he have fallen into a brown study? His eyes were open, and he appeared to be looking off through the forest. At length I touched his shoulder, but he did not move. I took his hand; he was dead! Shot through the heart. The roaring of the brook, and the steep bank, had prevented my hearing the report; but, as I sat there holding the dead hand, suddenly the woods seemed to grow alive with noise and light. Our camp had evidently been surprised by the enemy, and a sharp conflict began. I took poor Allan's note-book and watch, and, remembering his mother, I managed to cut off a lock of his curly hair; but, before I had gone far, I myself was struck by a stray shot, and knew nothing more until I awoke in a border hospital two months afterwards, pale and weak, the very shadow of my former self. As memory came back, I thought of the captain. The relics had been preserved, and, as soon as I was able, I sent them to the poor mother, with a letter describing my last conversation with her boy,--his last words on earth. I supposed, of course, that she knew from other sources all the details of the attack, but I felt that I must also tell her what _I_ knew; possibly it would be some comfort to her. In about a week I received a letter written in a careful, old-fashioned handwriting. The poor mother had known nothing all that long time save this: 'Captain A. Worthington reported missing.' Our regiment had suffered severely. The camp had been abandoned, and the dead left on the field. The suspense had been dreadful, and she had prayed for relief. It had come in the inward conviction that her boy was dead; that he was not in the southern prisons or languishing in a hospital, but gone from earth forever. My letter brought her the first definite tidings, and my description of that last conversation, the first comfort. 'I shall go to him though he shall not return to me,' wrote the afflicted mother; and she gave me her blessing in such solemn, tender words, that I can never forget them. In the letter she enclosed a picture of Allan, sent home to her during the previous year; and with it another, a picture of the one of whom Allan said, 'I want to see her; I never knew how much until now.'" As Hugh finished reading, he took the photographs from an envelope, and handed them to Aunt Faith. They were passed from hand to hand, with gentle comments, and some tear-dimmed eyes gazed on the pictured faces,--a resolute, grave young soldier, with earnest eyes, and a little, delicate, wistful maiden, as fair and simple as a wild-flower. "The war made many partings," said Aunt Faith, as she replaced the pictures in their envelope, and returned them to Mr. Leslie; "but the lost ones are only gone before. There are no partings there."