wheeling about, presented James with a leaf of laurel, one of many he held in his hand; there was a wild sparkle in his eyes, and a bright flush upon his cheek.
"What for, serjeant-major?" inquired James, taking the leaf, and giving a military salute.
"Toulouse!" answered the veteran, in a voice of triumph; yet the tone was full of music, and rendered ample justice to the musical word. "Toulouse! my old fellow," he repeated.
"So it is!" answered James Hardy; "it is the anniversary, sure enough. And yet, master, if we are to mount a fresh laurel for every day we gained a victory, we shall have to get as many as there are days in the year."
"Right, Hardy, right," replied the sergeant-major. "Right; three hundred and sixty-five laurel-leaves per annum. Right, that was well said. Lucy walked out this morning and gathered me a basketful; she knew I'd want them for my old comrades, as soon as I could get down to the college. She's worthy to be a soldier's daughter."
"Ah, ah! and a soldier's wife," responded James; "isn't she, John?" And John, thinking James had been telling a story, laughed his little laugh as usual.
"Worthy to be anything, thank God," said the sergeant-major; but the expression of his face changed; it lost its flush and its proud glance of triumph; anxiety for his only child obliterated even the memory of "Toulouse;"—the soldier was absorbed in the father,—and he continued, "No: I should not like her to be a soldier's wife, Jem, I should not; she hasn't strength for campaigning. It killed her poor mother; they said it was consumption; but it was no such thing. It was the wet and dry, heat and cold, ups and downs of campaigning; she would not leave me—not she: it is a wonderful thing, the abiding love that links a frail, delicate woman to the rough soldier and his life of hardships; and such a loving mother as she had, and such a home; she never heard anything louder than the ripple of the mountain rill, and the coo of the ringdove, until, a girl of seventeen, she plunged with me into the hot war. You remember her, Jem?" The sergeant-major's seventeen years of widowhood had not dried up the sources of his grief; he drew his hand across his eyes, and then began, hastily and with a tremulous hand, to fit the laurel leaves, which he still held, one within the other.
"That I do—remember her—and well;" answered James Hardy.
"What is it?" inquired old John. James made him understand they were speaking of poor Mrs. Joyce.
"Ah!" said John, "she was an angel,—Miss Lucy is very like her mother—very like her—even to the way she has in church of laying her hand on her heart—so,—as if it beat too fast."
"She does not do that, does she, James?" inquired the sergeant-major, eagerly; "I never saw her do that."
