and the deceased, cut off a large lock of his beautiful hair, and separating it into small tresses, handed one to each of the officers.  This considerate action, although unsolicited on the part of the latter, deeply touched them, as indicating a sense of the high estimation in which the youth bad been held.  It was a tribute to the memory of him they mourned, of the purest kind; and each, as he received his portion, acknowledged with a mournful but approving look, or nod, or word, the motive that bad prompted the offering.  Nor was it a source of less satisfaction, melancholy even as that satisfaction was, to perceive that, after having set aside another lock, probably for the sister of the deceased, she selected and consigned to the bosom of her dress a third, evidently intended for herself.  The whole scene was in striking contrast with the almost utter absence of all preparation or concern that had preceded the interment of Murphy, on a former occasion.  In one, the rude soldier was mourned, —­in the other, the gentle friend was lamented; nor the latter alone by the companions to whom intimacy had endeared him, but by those humbler dependants, who knew him only through those amiable attributes of character, which were ever equally extended to all.  Gradually the officers now moved away in the same noiseless manner in which they had approached, either in pursuance of their several duties, or to make their toilet of the morning.  Two only of their number remained near the couch of death.

“Poor unfortunate De Haldimar!” observed one of these, in a low tone, as if speaking to himself; “too fatally, indeed, have your forebodings been realised; and what I considered as the mere despondency of a mind crashed into feebleness by an accumulation of suffering, was, after all, but the first presentiment of a death no human power might avert.  By Heaven!  I would give up half my own being to be able to reanimate that form once more,—­but the wish is vain.”

“Who shall announce the intelligence to his sister?” sighed his companion.  “Never will that already nearly heart-broken girl be able to survive the shock of her brother’s death.  Blessington, you alone are fitted to such a task; and, painful as it is, you must undertake it.  Is the colonel apprised of the dreadful truth, do you know?”

“He is.  It was told him at the moment of our arrival last night; but from the little outward emotion displayed by him, I should be tempted to infer he had almost anticipated some such catastrophe.”

“Poor, poor Charles!” bitterly exclaimed Sir Everard Valletort—­for it was he.  “What would I not give to recal the rude manner in which I spurned you from me last night.  But, alas! what could I do, laden with such a trust, and pursued, without the power of defence, by such an enemy?  Little, indeed, did I imagine what was so speedily to be your doom!  Blessington,” he pursued, with increased emotion, “it grieves me to wretchedness to think that he, whom I loved as though he had been my twin brother, should have perished with his last thoughts, perhaps, lingering on the seeming unkindness with which I had greeted him after so anxious an absence.”