heartily. How could they help it! he was
the only man on that rude glacis, torn and gullied with shot and shell."

[Illustration: 166]

"Oh, the noble fellow!" burst out the girl, as her eyes ran over.

"Is n't he a noble fellow?" said the soldier. "We don't want for brave
fellows in that army; but show me one will do what he did. It was a shot
carried off this," said he, touching the empty sleeve of his jacket;
"and I said something--I must have been wandering in my mind--about a
ring my mother had given me, and it was on the finger of that poor
hand. Well, what does Jack Kellett do, while the surgeon was dressing
my wound, but set off to the place where I was shot down, and, under all
that hailstorm of Minie-balls, brought in the limb. That's the ring,--he
rescued it at the risk of his life. There's more than courage in that;
there's a goodness and kindness of heart worth more than all the bravery
that ever stormed a battery."

"And yet he left me,--deserted his poor father!" cried old Kellett,
sobbing.

"If he did so, it was to make a name for you that the first man in
England might be proud of."

"To go off and list as a common soldier!" said Kellett; and then,
suddenly shocked at his own rudeness, and shamed by the deep blush on
Sybella's face, he stammered out, "Not but I've known many a man with
good blood in his veins,--many a born gentleman,--serving in the ranks."

"Well, I hope so," said the other, laughing with a hearty good-nature.
"It's not exactly so common a thing with us as with our worthy allies
the French; but every now and then you'll find a firelock in the hands
that once held a double-barrelled Manton, and maybe knocked over the
pheasants in his own father's preserves."

"Indeed, I have heard of such things," said Kellett, with a sigh; but
he was evidently lending his assent on small security, because he cared
little for the venture.

"How poor Jack loves you!" cried Bella, who, deep in her brother's
letter, had paid no attention to what was passing; "he calls you
Charley,--nothing but Charley."

"My name is Charles Conway," said the young man, smiling pleasantly.

"'Charley,'" read she, aloud, "'my banker when I have n't a shilling, my
nurse in hospital, my friend always,--he 'll hand you this, and tell
you all about me. How the dear old dad will love to hear his stories of
campaigning life, so like his own Peninsular tales! He'll see that the
long peace has not tamed the native pluck