hetic and anxious to do her utmost to gain
information about her missing son, but the mother's graphic descriptions
of him did not avail much. The fact that he was young, tall, handsome,
curly-haired, etcetera, applied to so many of the defenders of the
country as to be scarcely distinctive enough; but when she spoke of "My
dear Miles," a new light was thrown on the matter. She was told that a
young soldier answering to the description of her son had been there
recently, but that his surname--not his Christian name--was Miles.
Would she recognise his handwriting?

"Recognise it?" exclaimed Mrs Milton, in a blaze of sudden hope. "Ay,
that I would; didn't I teach him every letter myself? Didn't he insist
on making his down-strokes crooked? and wasn't my heart almost broken
over his square O's?"

While the poor mother was speaking, the unfinished letter was laid
before her, and the handwriting at once recognised.

"That's his! Bless him! And he's sorry. Didn't I say he would be
sorry? Didn't I tell his father so? Darling Miles, I--"

Here the poor creature broke down, and wept at the thought of her
repentant son. It was well, perhaps, that the blow was thus softened,
for she almost fell on the floor when her new friend told her, in the
gentlest possible manner, that Miles had that very day set sail for
Egypt.

They kept her at the Institute that night, however, and consoled her
much, as well as aroused her gratitude, by telling of the good men who
formed part of her son's regiment; and of the books and kind words that
had been bestowed on him at parting; and by making the most they could
of the good hope that the fighting in Egypt would soon be over, and that
her son would ere long return to her, God willing, sound and well.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

MILES BEGINS TO DISCOVER HIMSELF--HAS A FEW ROUGH EXPERIENCES--AND FALLS
INTO PEA-SOUP, SALT-WATER, AND LOVE.

While his mother was hunting for him in Portsmouth, Miles Milton was
cleaving his way through the watery highway of the world, at the rate of
fifteen knots.

He was at the time in that lowest condition of misery, mental and
physical, which is not unfrequently the result of "a chopping sea in the
Channel." It seemed to him, just then, an unbelievable mystery how he
could, at any time, have experienced pleasure at the contemplation of
food! The heaving of the great white ship was nothing to the heaving--
well, it may perhaps be wiser to refrain from pa