equence. This had nearly deprived me of her who was my best friend
and guide; but, by dint of great care and good nursing, she recovered,
and was at this moment in all the health and beauty of twenty-two, and
expected shortly to present me with another pledge of mutual love. A
strange coincidence brought her good mother, brother, and sister to the
station, neither of whom we could have expected, and we all waited the
happy issue of this event. I cannot relate our preliminary proceedings
and great anxiety. Suffice it that, on the following morning, having
given birth, after twelve hours' protracted labour, to a beautiful boy,
she was a corpse, having that morning completed her two-and-twentieth
year. All my former misfortunes now rushed upon my distracted mind with
tenfold force, and this last blow seemed to bereave me of all that on
earth I could love; and my poor child, kissing the cold lips of his dead
mother, and pathetically beseeching her to get up and speak to him,
roused me to a full sense of my utter misery and woe. Neither his uncle
nor his aunt could drag him from embracing the corpse of his dear
mother; his cries were dreadful; and it was imagined, for some time
after, that the dear boy's intellect had received a shock that was
likely to prove lasting. He frequently wept bitterly, and would
affectionately hug and kiss, a thousand times, any little thing that had
been his mother's, preserving most carefully even little pieces of rag
or paper that he knew had been hers. My poor mother-in-law scarcely ever
spoke for the long period of six months, after this dreadful shock, but
lay in a melancholy state of insensibility, not knowing even her little
grandson, who would linger over her sick-bed for whole days together.

At this very crisis of my life the court-martial was communicated to me
as having been confirmed in England, and I was directed to proceed to
the Presidency of Fort William, preparatory to being sent home, to be
placed on the half-pay.

This final sentence was communicated to me through the regiment, some
few days after my wife's death, who was, therefore, spared this last
pang. When the letter was delivered to me, I was sitting on a couch with
my two motherless babes, one four years old, the other but a few days.
On tracing the contents of the letter, when my eager eyes met the words
"Dismissed the service," I could not repress the tear of anguish, nor
refrain from indulging in the most unavailing