s my first battle--do they think it's going to be my last?"

"I'm afraid they do, John."

It was the hardest question I had ever been called upon to answer;
doubly hard with those clear eyes fixed upon mine, forcing a truthful
answer by their own truth. He seemed a little startled at first,
pondered over the fateful fact a moment, then shook his head, with a
glance at the broad chest and muscular limbs stretched out before him.

"I'm not afraid; but it is difficult to believe all at once. I'm so
strong, it does not seem possible for such a little wound to kill me."

THE LAST LETTER.

"Shall I write to your mother now?" I asked, thinking that these
sudden tidings might change all plans and purposes; but they did not:
for the man received the order of the Divine Commander to march with
the same unquestioning obedience with which the soldier had received
that of the human one, doubtless remembering that the first led him to
life, the last to death.

"No, ma'am--to Laurie, just the same; he'll break it to her best, and
I'll add a line to her, myself, when you get done."

So I wrote the letter, which he dictated, finding it better than any I
had sent, for, though here and there a little ungrammatical or
inelegant, each sentence came to me briefly worded, but most
expressive, full of excellent counsel to the boy, tenderly bequeathing
"mother and Lizzie" to his care, and bidding him good-by in words the
sadder for their simplicity. He added a few lines, with steady hand,
and, as I sealed it, said, with a patient sort of sigh, "I hope the
answer will come in time for me to see it." Then, turning away his
face, he laid the flowers against his lips, as if to hide some quiver
of emotion at the thought of such a sudden sundering of all the dear
home ties.

Those things had happened two days before. Now John was dying, and the
letter had not come. I had been summoned to many death-beds in my
life, but to none that made my heart ache as it did then, since my
mother called me to watch the departure of a spirit akin to this, in
its gentleness and patient strength. As I went in, John stretched out
both his hands.

"I knew you'd come! I guess I'm moving on, ma'am."

He was, and so rapidly that, even while he spoke, over his face I saw
the gray veil falling that no human hand can lift. I sat down by him,
wiped the drops from his forehead, stirred the air about him with the
slow wave of a fan, and waited to help him die. He s