me, O LORD, Who hast been a Father to the fatherless, and a husband to the widow." A silence for a minute followed, during which Mr. Randall offered the words of the commendatory prayer, and before he had finished it the spirit of the poor sufferer had flown.

In the deep silence of the prison room, during which the faint flicker of the lamp was the chief sound, the father gazed upon the fading features of his child; he had not moved the hand which still lay shadowing and chilling upon his own. The other lay stretched out on the sheet, a memorial of the patient movements of his dying moments; his hair lay disordered upon his forehead, while the still open eyelid and parted lips gave an unwonted yet awful beauty to the countenance, which with the smile which had not had time to pass away from its features before it was arrested by the hand of death looked as if gazing after the spirit which had been its companion for the sixteen years of its earthly sojourn ;—like a cloud looming over the orb of the moon, which having through the hours of the night appeared to have made it her silent chariot upon her noiseless career sinks under the force of an unseen hand below the horizon of the coming day, and leaves behind, as if gazing after her departure, the cloud whose lustre gradually pales away into grey nothingness. So in that long hour of watching anguish over the face of his boy flitted the deeper and deeper shadows which hover over the corpse when severed from its soul.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE HOSPITAL.

BUT while Mr. Randall was thus occupied in tending the sick and death-bed pillow of his boy, John Dennis was also a prisoner in the great town. He had been borne with such rapidity within its gates by his Cossack captors that he scarcely had had time to notice the approach or appearance of the streets. It seemed that as yet the Russians were not accustomed to prisoners. Dennis' quarters were frequently changed, and he was moved almost daily from house to house, though he generally fared well, and found a universal intelligence and kind-heartedness in all his enemies. The very few who were able to speak a word or two of English questioned him closely as to the English, and their intentions; while those who were unable to put their questions in a tongue which the boy could understand strove by signs and signals to gain the desired information. What had most struck Dennis as yet was the extreme cleanliness and neatness of all he saw; the personal appearance of the poorest Russian as well as the streets and arrangements of the town equally surprised him, From the days of the wars of the Greeks and Persians downwards, men have been in the habit of counting their enemies, be they what they may, barbarians, and if the Russians had been assured that the English were "red devils," the English had a deep conviction that their foes were the offscouring of the earth.

But we shall hear better the impression made on the English youth's mind by what he saw, by the letter which he managed to write home, and which afterwards reached his parents.

Dear father and mother and sister,

This leaves me well, as I hope it finds you at present. The LORD bless you. I am in the great city of which there has been so much talk among our people. It is a fine place; the houses are very high, and all white, and the sea flows in through a harbour, on each side of which are two high forts which protect it, and look very fierce, and I should think if any of our men of war try to get past they will find the worst of it. But here I am. You must not think, father, that we are in Sebastopol, I mean the army, I am taken a prisoner by those Cossacks famous in history.

Dear father and mother, do not fret. I'm very comfortable; and if I have done my duty the LORD is with me as He was with Joseph in the dungeon, and in the pit. The Russians are not the sort of people which we' hear they are; I am in a house near the hospital, where I am guarded with several other prisoners taken since the Battle of Alma. There is a family in the house, of a man, and his wife, and children, and they are very civil to me; they are remarkably clean, and very quick, and want to know almost everything; they looked all over my clothes, and seemed to want to know everything about me. The man can speak a little English, so he asks me why we have come to besiege them? and whether we think GOD will bless us? And dear

father and mother, I hope it isn't wrong in me, but I cannot for the life of me say why we have come out; our fellows say it is all for the glory of Old England. But these Russians will not go with that view, so I'm dead beat. As to those Turks, I won't believe that we have come to fight for them as some say, for besides being infidels they are such cowards as you never saw. There are several Russian children in the house, and the odd thing is that all their names end with "owski." I can't help thinking, how ever it would be if all the boys in Brandon had their names end the same way, and the master had to call them over every morning.

Dear mother, don't fret because I am a prisoner. I shall get on very well as far as I can see. I am only sorry because I think Mr. Leonard must want me so. But however he'd bear up cheery if it was not for his wounds. Some of the English guns have been sending messages here once or twice lately, and though I am right glad to see them at work, and am justly proud of their force, it does not seem altogether civil when they don't discriminate between friend or foe, and look as like to take me off as any Russian among them. But that's all the chance of war, so I do not care. the line of duty, and that's enough for me.

I'm in

I ought to say that three poor fellows wounded at Alma, one a Frenchman and the other two English, are prisoners in the same house with me, they are to be moved into the hospital to-morrow, for they are very bad. The hospital is a splendid building, next door to this. If I can get leave I shall go in and nurse them.

I can't write more now, for I hear a noise outside

which sounds very like a cannonading, and where I am is not altogether safe, so good-bye. My love to all inquiring friends: to uncle Higgs and cousin Sally up on the common and tell Mrs. Harding that her Joe who 'listed, was shot at the Alma, and killed-poor fellow. Also tell Mrs. Franklin that Bill Franklin, who 'listed, is doing well, and is an honour to the service. Kind love to old Mrs. Evans, and my respects to all at the hall. Good-bye, and don't fret.

Your dutiful Son,

JOHN DENNIS.

A short visit to the hospital soon convinced Dennis that the prisoner fared better than the native. Though the same habit of cleanliness and order in personal arrangements prevailed through the wards of the hospital, it was clear enough that it covered a condition of bodily want and depression which made Dennis shudder when he looked around him and remembered that he might be for years in the hands of these people. The amount of food taken by them at all was small enough compared with that of the British soldier, and the kind of food was inferior, and far below the average used by the commonest labourer among us.

A poor lad, who was severely wounded in the battle, had been removed to the hospital; and Dennis by earnest entreaty had been allowed to go with him, as the hospital was under severe vigilance, and the wards were severally guarded by Russian soldiers. The bed to which the wounded lad was carried was in a ward already fast filling with the sick, and through the long