fingers filled the brown pipe.

"That is as it should be. Let beauty pay honor to courage; above all
to courage in its decay."

The old man grinned with gratified pride. The white hand lighted the
pipe, and gave it to the old soldier. He smiled gratefully all round
and sucked his homely consolation.

"I compound with you, corporal. You must let me put you on the road to
heaven, and, in return, I must let you go there in a cloud of
tobacco--ugh!"

"I'm agreeable, sir," said Giles dryly, withdrawing his pipe for a
moment.

"There," said Mr. Eden, closing the marked Testament, "read often in
this book. Read first the verses I have marked, for these very verses
have dropped comfort on the poor, the aged and the distressed for more
than eighteen hundred years, and will till time shall be no more. And
now good-by, and God bless you."

"God bless you, sir, wherever you go!" cried the old man with sudden
energy, "for you have comforted my poor old heart. I feel as I han't
felt this many a day. Your words are like the bugles sounding a charge
all down the line. You must go, I suppose; but do ye come again and
see me. And, Miss Merton, you never come to see me now, as you used."

"Miss Merton has her occupations like the rest of us," said Mr. Eden
quickly; "but she will come to see you--won't she?"