n some one,
and before she went she whispered to the embarrassed maid, "Oh, Molly,
to think so sweet a young gentleman should be completely wasted!"

Molly heaved a sigh, and then approached the young gentleman himself,
with whom she was now alone, saving the presence of the slumbering
Valentine.

"So your name is Molly? And you've brought me tea this time?"

"Yes, sir,--if you please, sir." She took up the bowl from the chair
and placed the cup in its stead. "I put sugar in this, sir, but if
you'd rather--"

"I'd rather have it just as you've made it, Molly," he said, in a
singularly gentle, unsteady tone. He raised the cup, and sipped.
"Delicious, Molly!--Hah! Your mistress thinks my tea-drinking days
will soon be over."

"I'm very sorry, sir."

"So am I." He held the cup in his left hand, supporting his upright
body with his right arm, and looked rather at vacancy than at the
maid. "Never to drink tea again," he said, "or wine or spirits, for
that matter! To close your eyes on this fine world! Never again to
ride after the hounds, or sing, or laugh, or chuck a pretty girl under
the chin!"

And here, having set down the cup, he chucked Molly herself under the
chin, pretending a gaiety he did not feel.

"Never again," he went on, "to lead a charge against the enemies of
our liberty; not to live to see this fight out, the King's regiments
driven from the land, the States take their place among the free
nations of the world! _By God, Molly, I don't want to die yet!_"

It was not the fear of death, it was the love of life, and what life
might have in reserve, that moved him; and it now asserted itself in
him with a force tenfold greater than ever before. Death,--or, rather,
the ceasing of life,--as he viewed it now, when he was like to meet it
without company, with prescribed preliminaries, in an ignominious
mode, was a far other thing than as viewed in the exaltation of
battle, when a man chances it hot-headed, uplifted, thrilled, in
gallant comradeship, to his own fate rendered careless by a sense of
his nothingness in comparison with the whole vast drama. Moreover, in
going blithely to possible death in open fight, one accomplishes
something for his cause; not so, going unwillingly to certain death on
an enemy's gallows. It was, too, an exasperating thought that he
should die to gratify the vengeful whim of an insolent Tory girl.

"Will it really come to that?" asked Molly, in a frightened tone.

"As sur