people" of Chelsea, regarded with peculiar admiration,) out of the parlour window. Lucy always brought him his pipe, but he never smoked it in the room, thinking it made her cough. And then, after he had finished, he shut down the window, and she drew the white muslin curtain; those who passed and repassed saw their shadows; the girl bending over a large book, and her father seated opposite to her; listening while she read, his elbow placed on the table, and his head resting on his hand. The drapery was so transparent that they could see his sword and sash hanging on the wall above his hat; and the branch of laurel with which Lucy had adorned the looking-glass that morning in commemoration of the battle of Toulouse. Before the sergeant-major went to bed that night he called old Mary, and whispered, "You were quite right about old John Coyne. Lucy never marched better than she did to-day; and her voice, both in reading, and the little hymn she sung, was as strong as a trumpet. I'll give it well to old John, to-morrow;"—but he never did. The sergeant-major was usually up the first in the house; yet, the next morning, when Mary took hot water to his room she stepped back, seeing he was kneeling, dressed, by his bed side; half an hour passed; she went again. Mr. Joyce had never undressed, never laid upon the bed since it had been turned down; he was dead and cold; his hands clasped in prayer. Some of the vessels of the heart, or head, had given way; the wonderful machine was disturbed; its power destroyed in an instant.
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THE FORLORN HOPE
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