ese
performances, and was pleased to pass some eulogiums on my Lord
Duberley. When the play had concluded, a gentleman came into the
dressing-room, and addressed me thus: "Shipp, if you act your part as
baggage-master, as you have that of Lord Duberley, you will do well."

"Baggage-master!" I replied, "I don't understand you."--"Why," said he,
"you are appointed baggage-master to the left division of the grand
army."

"My dear Sir," said I, "you must be mistaken; for I have not heard a
syllable of the matter." He replied, "You may depend upon it as a fact;
and, to be candid with you, I went to Lord Hastings and asked him for
the appointment, when he himself told me you were already appointed, at
the especial request and wish of Major-General Marshall, in
consideration of your conduct at Hattrass, and of your being the only
officer wounded during that siege."

Had I known this good news before, I would have thrown all the life and
soul of a baggage-master into the character of Lord Duberley. As it was,
no intelligence could be more welcome to me. On the following morning I
wrote to the brigade-major to know if the information was true. He
replied by note that it was, and apologized for having, through
multiplicity of business, forgotten to mention to me that I must join
the left division of the grand army forthwith. They had left Cawnpore
two days before. Being now sure of this good news, I communicated it to
my wife, and fixed the following day for my departure. I then waited on
the noble marquis, to thank him for my preferment. His lordship received
me with great kindness. "Mr. Shipp," said he, "you have no occasion to
thank me, but your own merit, and the kindness of Major-General
Marshall, who requested the appointment of me as a favour conferred on
him." His lordship concluded, "I will not ask you to dine to-day, as you
would in all probability prefer spending the short time you have to
spare with your family." I expressed my grateful sense of his lordship's
kindness, and returned home and spent the day with her whom I loved best
on earth. In the evening I took leave of my brother officers, and on the
following morning, ere the cock crew, I had taken an early breakfast,
and by the time the sun left his slumbering couch I was some miles on my
road, to join the left division of the grand army.

There is a kind of pensiveness by which the human mind is assailed on
separating, though for a short time only, from plea