e result of accident. So we sent away their little
boat, and just at that moment the gun-room steward announced
breakfast. We invited our new friends down, and gave them a hearty
meal in peace and comfort--a luxury they had not enjoyed for many a
long and rugged day.

"Our next care was to afford our tired warriors the much-required
comforts of a razor and clean linen. We divided the party amongst us;
and I was so much taken with one of these officers, that I urged him
to accept such accommodation as my cabin and wardrobe afforded. He
had come to us without one stitch of clothes beyond what he then wore,
and these, to say the truth, were not in the best condition, at the
elbows and other angular points of his frame. Let that pass--he was as
fine a fellow as ever stepped; and I had much pride and pleasure in
taking care of him during the passage.

"We soon became great friends; but on reaching England we parted, and
I never saw him more. Of course he soon lost sight of me, but his fame
rose high, and, as I often read his name in the Gazettes during the
subsequent campaigns in the Peninsula, I looked forward with a
gradually increasing anxiety to the renewal of an acquaintance begun
so auspiciously. At last I was gratified by a bright flash of hope in
this matter, which went out, alas, as speedily as it came. Not quite
six years after these events, I came home from India, in command of a
sloop of war. Before entering the Channel, we fell in with a ship
which gave us the first news of the battle of Waterloo, and spared us
a precious copy of the Duke of Wellington's despatch; and within five
minutes after landing at Portsmouth, I met a near relation of my own.
This seemed a fortunate rencontre, for I had not received a letter
from home for nearly a year--and I eagerly asked him--

"'What news of all friends?'

"'I suppose,' he said, 'you know of your sister's marriage?'

"'No, indeed! I do not!--which sister?'

"He told me.

"'But to whom is she married?' I cried out with intense impatience,
and wondering greatly that he had not told me this at once.

"'Sir William De Lancey was the person,' he answered. But he spoke not
in the joyous tone that befits such communications.

"'God bless me!' I exclaimed. 'I am delighted to hear that. I know him
well--we picked him up in a boat, at sea, after the battle of Corunna,
and I brought him home in my cabin in the _Endymion_. I see by the
despatch, giving an account of the