shown your last letter to Mr. Davenport
Dunn, who cordially joins me in desiring that you will let me send it to
the papers. He remarks truly, that the Irish temperament of making the
ludicrous repay the disagreeable is wanting in all this controversy, and
that the public mind would experience a great relief if one writer would
come forth to show that the bivouac fire is not wanting in pleasant
stories, nor even the wet night in the trenches without its burst of
light-hearted gayety.

"Mr. Dunn fully approves of your determination not to 'purchase.' It
would be too hard if you could not obtain your promotion from the ranks
after such services as yours; so he says, and so, I suppose, I ought to
concur with him; but as this seven hundred pounds lies sleeping at
the banker's while your hard life goes on, I own I half doubt if he be
right. I say this to show you, once for all, that I will accept
nothing of it I am provided for amply, and I meet with a kindness and
consideration for which I was quite unprepared. Of course, I endeavor
to make my services requite this treatment, and do my best to merit the
good-will shown me.

"I often wonder, dear Jack, when we are to meet, and where. Two more
isolated creatures there can scarcely be on earth than ourselves, and
we ought, at least, to cling to each other. Not but I feel that, in thus
struggling alone with fortune, we are storing up knowledge of ourselves,
and experiences of life that will serve us hereafter. When I read in
your letters how by many a little trait of character you can endear
yourself to your poor comrades, softening the hardship of their lot by
charms and graces acquired in another sphere from theirs, I feel doubly
strong in going forth amongst the poor families of our neighborhood, and
doubly hopeful that even I may carry my share of comfort to some poorer
and more neglected.

"The last object I have placed in your box, dearest Jack,--it will be
the first to reach your hands,--is my prayer-book. You have often held
it with me, long, long ago! Oh, if I dared to wish, it would be for that
time again, when we were children, with one heart between us. Let us
pray, my dear brother, that we may live to meet and be happy as we then
were; but if that is not to be,--if one be destined to remain alone a
wanderer here,--pray, my dearest brother, that the lot fall not to me,
who am weak-hearted and dependent.

"The day is already beginning to break, and I must close t