oat. The young sailor reverently
inserted his hand and drew it forth. It was a plain gold locket.
Touching the spring, it opened, and there were pictured the faces of
the two women Talbot had loved,--on the one side the mother, stately,
proud, handsome, resolute, the image of the man himself; on the other,
the brown eyes and the fair hair and the red lips of beautiful
Katharine Wilton. There was a letter too in the pocket. The bayonet
thrust which had reached his heart had gone through it, and it, and the
locket also, was stained with blood. The letter was addressed to
Seymour; wondering, he broke the seal and read it. It was a brief
note, written in camp the night of the march. It would seem that
Talbot had a presentiment that he might die in the coming conflict;
indeed the letter plainly showed that he meant to seek death, to court
it in the field. His mother was to be told that he had done his duty,
and had not failed in sustaining the traditions of his honorable house;
and the honest soldierly little note ended with these words,--

_As for you, my dear Seymour, would that fate had been kinder to you!
Were Katharine alive, I would crave your permission to say these words
to her: 'I love you, Kate,--I've always loved you--but the better man
has won you.' My best love to the old mother. Won't you take it to
her? And good-by, and God bless you!----Hilary Talbot._

The brilliance went out of the sunshine, the brightness faded out of
the morning, and Seymour stood there with the tears running down his
cheeks,--not ashamed to weep for his friend. And yet the man was with
Kate, he thought, and happy,--he could almost envy him his quiet sleep.
The course of his thoughts was rudely broken by the approach of a party
of horsemen, who rode up to where he stood. Their leader, a bold
handsome young man, of distinguished appearance, in the brilliant dress
of a British general officer, reined in his steed close by him, and
addressed him.

"How now, sir! Weeping? Tears do not become a soldier!"

"Ah, sir," said Seymour, saluting, and pointing down to Talbot's body
at the same time, "not even when one mourns the death of a friend?"

"Your friend, sir?" replied the general officer, courteously,
uncovering and looking down at the bodies with interest; his practised
eye immediately taking in the details of the little conflict.

"He did not go to his death alone," he said meaningly. "'Fore Gad,
sir, here has been