intelligence she thanked God that her husband at least would be safe at
home during the storm. But she was soon to be undeceived. When the news
first came, James had galloped off to Portsmouth, and late in the
evening they saw him come riding slowly and sadly up the avenue. She
was down at the gate before he could dismount, and to her eager
inquiries if the news were true, he replied,

"All too true, my love; and I must leave you this day week."

"My God!" said she; "leave me again, and not six months married? Surely
the king has had you long enough; may not your wife have you for a few
short months?"

"Listen to me, dear wife," he replied. "All the Peninsular men are
volunteering, and I must not be among the last, for every man is wanted
now. Buonaparte is joined by the whole army, and the craven king has
fled. If England and Prussia can combine to strike a blow before he
gets head, thousands and hundreds of thousands of lives will be spared.
But let him once get firmly seated, and then, hey! for ten years' more
war. Beside the thing is done; my name went in this morning."

She said, "God's will be done;" and he left his young bride and his old
father once again. The nightingale grew melodious in the midnight
woods, the swallows nestled again in the chimneys, and day by day the
shadows under the old avenue grew darker and darker till merry June was
half gone; and then one Saturday came the rumour of a great defeat.

All the long weary summer Sabbath that followed, Agnes and Marmaduke
silently paced the terrace, till the curate--having got through his
own services somehow, and broken down in the "prayer during war and