comfort her were in vain; though, in fact, my sufferings were almost as
great as hers.

We waited in the deepest anxiety for several days, always hoping that we
would hear some tidings concerning him, but none came. I therefore wrote to
the War-Office, and I wrote also to his Colonel. From the War-Office I
received a letter from a clerk, saying that he was commanded to inform me,
that they could give me no information relative to Lieutenant Goldie,
beyond what was contained in the public prints. The whole letter did not
exceed three lines. You would have said that the writer had been employed
to write a certain number of letters in a day, at so much a day, and the
sooner he got through his work the better. I set it down in my mind that he
had never had a son amissing on the field of battle, or he never would have
written an anxious and sorrowing father such a cold scrawl. He did not even
say that, if they got any tidings concerning my son, they would make me
acquainted with them. He was only commanded to tell me that they did not
know what I was, beyond every thing on earth, desirous to ascertain. Though
perhaps, I ought to admit that, in a time of war, the clerks in the
War-Office had something else to do than enter particularly into the
feelings of every father that had a son in the army, and to answer all his
queries.

From the Colonel, however, I received a long, and a very kind letter. He
said many flattering things in praise of my gallant laddie, and assured me
that the whole regiment deplored his being separated from them. He,
however, had no doubt but that he had fallen into the hands of the enemy,
and that, in some exchange of prisoners, or in the event of a peace, he
would be restored to his parents and country again.

This letter gave us some consolation. It encouraged us to cherish the hope
of pressing our beloved son again to our breasts, and of looking on his
features, weeping and wondering at the alterations which time, war, and
imprisonment had wrought upon them. But more than three years passed away,
and not a syllable did we hear concerning him, that could throw the least
light upon where he was, or whether he was dead or living. Anxiety preyed
sadly upon his mother's health as well as upon her spirits, and I could not
drive away a settled melancholy.

About that time a brother of mine, who was a bachelor, died in the East
Indies, and left me four thousand pounds. This was a great addition to our