ounded
were being brought in daily to Scutari.

In the mean time, Colonel Rolleston had sailed with his regiment, and
Mrs. Rolleston fell into such a state of nervous depression, that Cecil
saw it would be cruel to abandon her--another opportunity for going out
would soon occur, and defering her journey till then, she remained at
home to fulfil the more obvious duty of supporting the sinking spirits
of her step-mother.

And so passed many weary weeks. The battle of the Alma had been won, and
none of their belongings had appeared in the long list of killed and
wounded. Mrs. Rolleston, becoming more accustomed to suspense, bore up
with greater fortitude. Letters from the seat of war were, of course,
waited for with fearful anxiety, and on the few and far between occasions
when these arrived, they were all comparatively happy.

One evening Cecil was sitting alone in her own room, and, being very
tired after a long day at the hospital, dropped asleep in her chair. She
awoke with a feeling of deadly chilliness. The moon was shining into the
room, and the figure of Bertie Du Meresq, keen clearly by its rays, was
standing quietly gazing at her.

"Bertie!" shrieked Cecil "Oh, when did you come?"--and she tried to rush
forward to greet him, but her limbs seemed paralyzed, and he did not move
either, though a sad, sweet smile seemed to pass over his face. _Was_ it
himself, or only a quivering moonbeam? for when she was able to move
there was nothing else to be seen.

A ghost itself could not have been whiter than Cecil, as she fled to the
drawing room, and almost inarticulately described what she had beheld.

The very horror it inspired made Mrs. Rolleston repel the ghastly idea
almost angrily.

"Good heavens, Cecil, why do you frighten me so! You had fallen asleep,
and were dreaming. You say yourself," and she shuddered, "_it_ was gone
when you awoke."

"You know," said the girl, not apparently attending, "I have never seen
Bertie in uniform, but this is what he wore," (describing the dress of
the ---- Hussars), "and his tunic was torn."

"That is too absurd, Cecil. All Hussar uniforms are more or less alike,
and you must have seen many. It _is_ this dreadful idea of going to
Scutari that has filled your mind with horrors, and hospital work here
has been too much for you, and told on your nerves."

But Cecil sat unheeding, as if turned to stone, with such a grey look of
despair on her face, that Mrs. Rolleston longed