in' as
brought me back--my blissin' on the dear ladies as give their hearts to
this work all for love! By the way," continued Flynn, coughing and
looking very stern, for he was ashamed of a tear or two which _would_
rise and almost overflow in spite of his efforts to restrain them--but
then, you see, he was very weak! "By the way," he said, "you'll niver
guess who wan o' the nurses is. Who d'ee think?--guess!"

"I never _could_ guess right, Flynn."

"Try."

"Well, little Mrs Armstrong."

"Nonsense, man! Why, she's nursin' her old father in England, I
s'pose."

"Miss Robinson, then?"

"H'm! You might as well say the Prime Minister. How d'ee s'pose the
Portsmuth Institute could git along widout _her_? No, it's our friend
Mrs Drew!"

"What! The wife o' the reverend gentleman as came out with us in the
troop-ship?"

"That same--though she's no longer the wife of the riverend gintleman,
for he's dead--good man," said Flynn, in a sad voice.

"I'm grieved to hear that, for he _was_ a good man. And the pretty
daughter, what of her?"

"That's more nor I can tell ye, boy. Sometimes her mother brings her to
the hospital to let her see how they manage, but I fancy she thinks her
too young yet to go in for sitch work by hersilf. Anyhow I've seen her
only now an' then; but the poor widdy comes rig'lar--though I do belave
she does it widout pay. The husband died of a flyer caught in the
hospital a good while since. They say that lots o' young fellows are
afther the daughter, for though the Drews are as poor as church rats,
she's got such a swate purty face, and such innocent ways wid her, that
I'd try for her mesilf av it wasn't that I've swore niver to forsake me
owld grandmother."

Chatting thus about times past and present, while they watched the
soldiers and seamen who passed continuously in and out of the
Institute--intent on a game, or some non-intoxicant refreshment, or a
lounge, a look at the papers, a confab with a comrade, or a bit of
reading--the two invalids enjoyed their rest to the full, and frequently
blessed the lady who provided such a retreat, as well as her
warm-hearted assistants, who, for the love of Christ and human souls,
had devoted themselves to carry on the work in that far-off land.

"I often think--" said Hardy.

But what he thought was never revealed; for at that moment two ladies in
deep mourning approached, whom the sergeant recognised at a glance as
Mrs Drew and her daugh