I can honestly say that I
hope you will be happy. I don't ask you to think of me too often, as
that might make you less so, but perhaps sometimes when you are quiet
you will spare your old lover a thought or two, because I am sure nobody
could care for you more than I do. You need not be afraid that I shall
forget you or marry anybody else. I shall do neither the one nor the
other. I must close this now to catch the mail; I don't know that there
is anything more to say. It is a hard trial--very; but it is no good
being weak and giving way, and it consoles me to think that you are
'bettering yourself' as the servants say. Good-bye, dear Madeline. May
God bless you, is now and ever my earnest prayer.
"J. G. Peritt."
Scarcely was this letter finished and hastily dispatched when a loud
voice was heard calling, "Bottles, Bottles, my boy, come rejoice with
me; the orders have come--we sail in a fortnight;" followed by the owner
of the voice, another subaltern, and our hero's bosom friend. "Why,
you don't seem very elated," said he of the voice, noting his friend's
dejected and somewhat dazed appearance.
"No--that is, not particularly. So you sail in a fortnight, do you?"
"'You sail?' What do you mean? Why, we _all_ sail, of course, from the
colonel down to the drummer-boy.
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