do anything for you?" I remember
the kind fellow asking. He was always asking that question: of all
kinsmen; of all widows and orphans; of all the poor; of young men who
might need his purse or his service. I saw a young officer yesterday
to whom the first words Sir Richmond Shakespear wrote on his arrival in
India were, "Can I do anything for you?" His purse was at the command
of all. His kind hand was always open. It was a gracious fate which sent
him to rescue widows and captives. Where could they have had a champion
more chivalrous, a protector more loving and tender?

I write down his name in my little book, among those of others dearly
loved, who, too, have been summoned hence. And so we meet and part;
we struggle and succeed; or we fail and drop unknown on the way. As we
leave the fond mother's knee, the rough trials of childhood and boyhood
begin; and then manhood is upon us, and the battle of life, with its
chances, perils, wounds, defeats, distinctions. And Fort William guns
are saluting in one man's honor,* while the troops are firing the last
volleys over the other's grave--over the grave of the brave, the gentle,
the faithful Christian soldier.

* W. R. obiit March 22, 1862.

NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY.

Most of us tell old stories in our families. The wife and children
laugh for the hundredth time at the joke. The old servants (though
old servants are fewer every day) nod and smile a recognition at the
well-known anecdote. "Don't tell that story of Grouse in the gun-room,"
says Diggory to Mr. Hardcastle in the play, "or I must laugh." As we
twaddle, and grow old and forgetful, we may tell an old story; or, out
of mere benevolence, and a wish to amuse a friend when conversation is
flagging, disinter a Joe Miller now and then; but the practice is not
quite honest, and entails a certain necessity of hypocrisy on story
hearers and tellers. It is a sad thing, to think that a man with what
you call a fund of anecdote is a humbug, more or less amiable and
pleasant. What right have I to tell my "Grouse in the gun-room" over and
over in the presence of my wife, mother, mother-in-law, sons, daughters,
old footman or parlor-maid, confidential clerk, curate, or what not? I
smirk and go through the history, giving my admirable imitations of the
characters introduced: I mimic Jones's grin, Hobbs's squint, Brown's
stammer, Grady's brogue, Sandy's Scotch accent, to the best of my power:
and, the family pa