e great Minister by whose
wisdom the campaign had been decreed. When he showed himself, the people
followed him with shouts and blessings. People did not deplore the dead
warrior, but admired his euthanasia. Should James Wolfe's friends weep
and wear mourning, because a chariot had come from the skies to fetch
him away? Let them watch with wonder, and see him departing, radiant;
rising above us superior. To have a friend who had been near or about
him was to be distinguished. Every soldier who fought with him was a
hero. In our fond little circle I know 'twas a distinction to be
Harry's brother. We should not in the least wonder but that he, from his
previous knowledge of the place, had found the way up the heights which
the British army took, and pointed it out to his General. His promotion
would follow as a matter of course. Why, even our Uncle Warrington wrote
letters to bless Heaven and congratulate me and himself upon the share
Harry had had in the glorious achievement. Our Aunt Beatrix opened her
house and received company upon the strength of the victory. I became a
hero from my likeness to my brother. As for Parson Sampson, he preached
such a sermon that his auditors (some of whom had been warned by his
reverence of the coming discourse) were with difficulty restrained from
huzzaing the orator, and were mobbed as they left the chapel. "Don't
talk to me, madam, about grief," says General Lambert to his wife,
who, dear soul, was for allowing herself some small indulgence of her
favourite sorrow on the day when Wolfe's remains were gloriously buried
at Greenwich. "If our boys could come by such deaths as James's, you
know you wouldn't prevent them from being shot, but would scale the
Abraham heights to see the thing done! Wouldst thou mind dying in
the arms of victory, Charley?" he asks of the little hero from the
Chartreux. "That I wouldn't," says the little man; "and the doctor gave
us a holiday, too."

Our Harry's promotion was insured after his share in the famous battle,
and our aunt announced her intention of purchasing a company for him.

CHAPTER LXXV. The Course of True Love

Had your father, young folks, possessed the commonest share of prudence,
not only would this chapter of his history never have been written, but
you yourselves would never have appeared in the world to plague him in
a hundred ways to shout and laugh in the passages when he wants to be
quiet at his books; to wake him when he i