ay just as the visitors were
leaving.

"Excuse me," he said to one of them, stopping her.

"Oh! I'm so glad to have found you," she said.

"I have been looking for you everywhere. Miss Robinson sent you this
little parcel of books, with her best wishes, and hopes that you will
read them."

"Thanks, very much. I will, with pleasure. And will you do me a
favour? I left a letter on the reading-room table--"

A sudden and peremptory order of some sort caused a rush which separated
Miles from the visitor and cut short the sentence, and the necessity for
the immediate departure of all visitors rendered its being finished
impossible.

But Miss Robinson's representative did not require to be told that a
forgotten letter could only want posting. On returning, therefore, to
the Institute, she went at once to the reading-room, where she found no
letter! Making inquiry, she learned from one of the maids that a sheet
of paper had been found with nothing on it but the words, "Dearest
mother, I'm so sorry"; and that the same had been duly conveyed to Miss
Robinson's room. Hasting to the apartment of her friend, she knocked,
and was bidden enter.

"You have got an unfinished letter, it seems?" she began.

"Yes; here it is," interrupted Miss Robinson, handing the sheet to her
assistant. "What a pity that it gives no clew to the writer--no
address!"

"I am pretty sure as to the writer," returned the other. "It must have
been that fine-looking young soldier, John Miles, of whom we have seen a
little and heard so much from Sergeant Gilroy."

Hereupon an account was given of the hurried and interrupted meeting on
board the troop-ship; and the two ladies came to the conclusion that as
nothing was known about the parents or former residence of John Miles no
steps of any kind were possible. The letter was therefore carefully put
by.

That same evening there alighted at the railway station in Portsmouth an
elderly lady with an expression of great anxiety on her countenance, and
much perturbation in her manner.

"Any luggage, ma'am?" asked a sympathetic porter--for railway porters
are sometimes more sympathetic than might be expected of men so much
accustomed to witness abrupt and tender partings.

"No; no luggage. Yes--a small valise--in the carriage. That's it."

"Four-wheeler, ma'am?"

"Eh! no--yes--yes."

"Where to, ma'am?" asked the sympathetic porter, after the lady was
seated in the cab.

"Where to?" e