u don't."

"Never!"

"I see it, and I know you too well to expect it. You look at this moment
as calm and collected as if we were sitting sewing by our own fireside.
Ah! those happy days are gone,--gone forever!"

"Folly! Why prate thus?"

"Nay, mother, I cannot bear to rest shut up with my own wretched
thoughts! It relieves my heart to talk of bygone times, when I little
expected to come to this."

"Mean, cowardly creature!"

"I know I am a coward, mother. I am afraid to die! Every one cannot
boast of your resolution. I do not possess it. I have tried as much as I
could to imitate you. I refused to listen to the priest because you did
not like it. Still I may have been wrong in sending the holy man away;
for," added the wretched creature, with a shudder, "who can tell what is
after death? Mother, do you hear me? After, I say! And it only wants--"

"Exactly three hours, and you will know all about it!"

"How can you speak so indifferently on such a dreadful subject? Yet true
enough; in three short hours, we who now sit talking to each other, who,
if at liberty, should ail nothing, but be ready to enjoy life, must die.
Oh, mother, can you not say one word to comfort me?"

"Be bold, girl, and die as you have lived, a true Martial!"

"You should not talk thus to your daughter," interposed the old soldier,
with a serious air; "you would have acted more like a parent had you
allowed her to listen to the priest when he came."

Again the widow contemptuously shrugged her shoulders, and, without
deigning to notice the soldier further than by bestowing on him a look
of withering contempt, she repeated to Calabash:

"Pluck up your courage, my girl, and let the world see that women have
more courage than men, with their priests and cowardly nonsense!"

"General Leblond was one of the bravest officers of the regiment he
belonged to. Well, this dauntless man fell at the siege of Saragossa,
covered with wounds, and his last expiring act was to sign himself with
the cross," said the veteran. "I served under him. I only tell you this
to prove that to die with a prayer on our lips is no sign of cowardice!"

Calabash eyed the bronzed features of the speaker with deep attention.
The scarred and weather-beaten countenance of the old man told of a life
passed in scenes of danger and of death, encountered with calm bravery.
To hear those wrinkled lips urging the necessity of prayer, and
associating religion with the memory of