arts that were dearly loved,
brothers that would be endlessly mourned, lives that were more precious
than any earthly treasures--the ghostly harvester claimed them all with
impartial cruelty. And he--desolate and lonely--with no one greatly to
care if he came back or no--with not a single golden thread of hope to
which he might cling, without a dream to brighten the coming days of
dreariness--with a life in the future that could hold nothing but vain
regrets, Bobby had sought Death twenty times to-day and Death had
resolutely passed him by.

But now he was grateful for that: he was thankful that he had lived just
long enough to see the sunset, just long enough to take part in that
last glorious charge in obedience to Wellington's inspiring command:
"Up, guards, and at them!" he was glad to have lived just long enough
to hear the "Sauve qui peut!" to know that the Grand Army was in full
retreat, that Bluecher had come up in time, that British pluck and
British endurance had won the greatest victory of all times for
Britain's flag and her national existence.

Now with a rough bandage hastily tied round his head where grape-shot
had lacerated cheek and ear, with a bayonet thrust in the thigh and
another in the arm, Bobby had remained lying there with many thousands
round him as silent, as uncomplaining, as he--in the down-trodden
corn--and with the tramp of thousands of galloping, fleeing horses, the
clash of steel and fusillade of tirailleurs and artillery reaching his
dimmed senses like a distant echo from the land of ghosts. And before
his eyes--half veiled in unconsciousness, there flitted the tender,
delicate vision of Crystal de Cambray: of her blue eyes and soft fair
hair, done up in a quaint mass of tiny curls; of the scarf of filmy lace
which she always liked to wrap round her shoulders, and through the lace
the pearly sheen of her skin, of her arms, and of her throat. The air
around him had become pure and rarified: that horrible stench of powder
and smoke and blood no longer struck his nostrils--it was roses, roses
all around him--crimson roses--sweet and caressing and fragrant--with
soft, velvety petals that brushed against his cheek--and from somewhere
close by came a dreamy melody, the half-sad, half-gay lilt of an
intoxicating dance.

It was delicious! and Bobby, wearied, sore and aching in body, felt his
soul lifted to some exquisite heights which were not yet heaven, of
course, but which must of a truth