"If it is all true, mother, what else is there worth thinking of in
heaven or earth?"

And Grace goes in with a dull, heavy look of utter exhaustion, bodily
and mental, and quietly sets the things for supper, and goes about her
cottage work as one who bears a heavy chain, but has borne it too long
to let it hinder the daily drudgery of life.

Grace had reason to pray at least, for the soldiers who were going
to the war. For as she prayed, the Orinoco, Ripon, and Manilla, were
steaming down Southampton Water, with the Guards on board; and but
that morning little Lord Scoutbush, left behind at the depôt, had bid
farewell to his best friend, opposite Buckingham Palace, while the
bearskins were on the bayonet-points, with--

"Well, old fellow, you have the fun, after all, and I the work;" and
had been answered with--

"Fun? there will be no fighting; and I shall only have lost my season
in town."

Was there, then, no man among them that day, who

"As the trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,
Heard in the wild March morning the angels call his soul"?

* * * * *

Verily they are gone down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of
heroes.