Poor old
gentleman. He was a kindly old man, and I had a great respect for him.
Alice, sing us a song, my love."

She sang them "The Burial of Sir John Moore" with such perfect taste
and pathos that Sam felt as if the candle had gone out when she
finished. Then she turned round and said to him, "You ought to like
that song; your father was one of the actors in it."

"He has often told me the story," said Sam, "but I never knew what a
beautiful one it was till I heard you sing it."

All pleasant evenings must end, and at last she rose to go to bed. But
Sam, before he went off to the land of happy dreams, saw that the
little white glove which he had noticed in the morning was lying
neglected on the floor; so he quietly secured and kept it. And, last
year, opening his family Bible to refer to certain entries, now pretty
numerous, in the beginning; I found a little white glove pinned to the
fly-leaf, which I believe to be the same glove here spoken of.

Chapter XXVIII

A GENTLEMAN FROM THE WARS.

I need hardly say that Sam was sorry when the two days which he had
allowed himself for his visit were over. But that evening, when he
mentioned the fact that he was going away in the morning, the Captain,
Alice, and Jim, all pressed him so eagerly to stay another week, that
he consented; the more as there was no earthly reason he knew of why he
should go home.

And the second morning from that on which he should have been at home,
going out to the stable before breakfast, he saw his father come riding
over the plain, and, going to meet him, found that he, too, meditated a
visit to the Captain.

"I thought you were come after me, father," said Sam. "By the bye, do
you know that the Captain's daughter, Miss Alice, is come home?"

"Indeed!" said the Major; "and what sort of a body is she?"

"Oh, she is well enough. Something like Jim. Plays very well on the
piano, and all that sort of thing, you know. Sings too."

"Is she pretty?" asked the Major.

"Oh, well, I suppose she is," said Sam. "Yes; I should say that a great
many people would consider her pretty."

They had arrived at the door, and the groom had taken the Major's
horse, when Alice suddenly stepped out and confronted them.

The Major had been prepared to see a pretty girl, but he was by no
means prepared for such a radiant, lovely, blushing creature as stepped
out of the darkness into the fresh morning to greet him, clothed in
white, bareheaded, wi