s some days earlier.

"I am far too full of my return, and of something else connected with it
which is equally dear to me, to say anything about public affairs, more
especially as I know that the newspapers must, by this time, have given
you plenty of information. Let me fill the rest of this paper with a
subject which is very near to my heart--nearer, I am almost ashamed
to say, than the great triumph of my countrymen, in which my disabled
condition has prevented me from taking any share.

"I gathered from your last letter that Miss Yelverton was to pay you a
visit this autumn, in your capacity of her guardian. If she is already
with you, pray move heaven and earth to keep her at The Glen Tower till
I come back. Do you anticipate my confession from this entreaty? My
dear, dear father, all my hopes rest on that one darling treasure which
you are guarding perhaps, at this moment, under your own roof--all my
happiness depends on making Jessie Yelverton my wife.

"If I did not sincerely believe that you will heartily approve of my
choice, I should hardly have ventured on this abrupt confession. Now
that I have made it, let me go on and tell you why I have kept my
attachment up to this time a secret from every one--even from Jessie
herself. (You see I call her by her Christian name already!)

"I should have risked everything, father, and have laid my whole heart
open before her more than a year ago, but for the order which sent our
regiment out to take its share in this great struggle of the Russian
war. No ordinary change in my life would have silenced me on the subject
of all others of which I was most anxious to speak; but this change made
me think seriously of the future; and out of those thoughts came the
resolution which I have kept until this time. For her sake, and for her
sake only, I constrained myself to leave the words unspoken which might
have made her my promised wife. I resolved to spare her the dreadful
suspense of waiting for her betrothed husband till the perils of war
might, or might not, give him back to her. I resolved to save her from
the bitter grief of my death if a bullet laid me low. I resolved to
preserve her from the wretched sacrifice of herself if I came back,
as many a brave man will come back from this war, invalided for life.
Leaving her untrammeled by any engagement, unsuspicious perhaps of
my real feelings toward her, I might die, and know that, by keeping
silence, I had spared a pang