aid I, very well.' 'Do you so?' said he,
wiping his eyes with his handkerchief; 'then well may I.' In saying
this, he drew a little ring out of his bosom, which seemed tied with a
black ribbon about his neck, and kissed it twice. 'Here, Billy,' said
he. The boy flew across the room to the bedside, and, falling down upon
his knee, took the ring in his hand, and kissed it, too; then kissed his
father, and sat down upon the bed and wept."

"I wish," said my uncle Toby, with a deep sigh, "I wish, Trim, I was
asleep."

"Your honor," replied the corporal, "is too much concerned. Shall I pour
your honor out a glass of sack to your pipe?" "Do, Trim," said my uncle
Toby.

"I remember," said my uncle Toby, sighing again, "the story of the
ensign and his wife, with a circumstance his modesty omitted; and
particularly well that he, as well as she, upon some account or other (I
forget what), was universally pitied by the whole regiment; but finish
the story thou art upon." "Tis finished already," said the corporal,
"for I could stay no longer, so wished his honor good-night." Young
LeFevre rose from off the bed and saw me to the bottom of the stairs;
and, as we went down together, told me they had come from Ireland, and
were on their route to join their regiment in Flanders. "But, alas,"
said the corporal, "the lieutenant's last day's march is over." "Then
what is to become of his poor boy?" cried my uncle Toby.

It was to my uncle Toby's eternal honor, though I tell it only for the
sake of those who, when cooped in betwixt a natural and a positive law,
know not, for their souls, which way in the world to turn themselves,
that, notwithstanding my uncle Toby was warmly engaged at that time in
carrying on the siege of Dendermond, parallel with the allies, who
pressed theirs on so vigorously that they scarce allowed him to get his
dinner, that, nevertheless, he gave up Dendermond, although he had
already made a lodgment upon the counterscarp, and bent his whole
thoughts-toward the private distresses at the inn, and that, except that
he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which he might be said to
have turned the siege of Dendermond into a blockade, he left Dendermond
to itself, to be relieved or not by the French king as the French king
thought good, and only considered how he himself should relieve the poor
lieutenant and his son.

That kind Being, who is a friend to the friendless, shall recompense
thee for this.

"Th