24 THE OSBORNES AND

ceeded :—‘ My husband is a soldier, ~a private in the
, now in Ireland, and which we follow. He was
a very handsome man ; and that was my bane. He
was of an unbroken temper, and was not loved in the
regiment. 1 suffered much from him; and yet I
would not leave him. I always went with the regi-
ment ; for the officers’ ladies liked me. I wasa good
laundress, and got up their fine linens to their mind ;
and for this reason, spite of my poor health, was per-
mitted to accompany the regiment to Ireland. I was,
however, taken very ill on the journey. I began to
spit blood ; and at Wolverhampton, I felt it was all
over with me; for a dreadful thing came to my
knowledge there.” With these words she drew
from under her pillow a part of a newspaper,
which she put into Joanna’s hand, and bade her —
read, but not aloud. She read how one Peter |
Reynolds, a private in the —— regiment of foot |
soldiers, bound for Ireland, who had been guilty
of some misdemeanor on the march, had de-
serted immediately on their arrival in Dublin,
been retaken, and sentenced by court-martial to be
shot.

“ He is my husband,” said the poor dying woman
after a time. ‘I thought I should have died as I
read the paper. 1 told nobody, however, but him,”
said she, looking at the boy, “and he has the sense
of a grown man. I knew how little Reynolds was
liked in the regiment, and that there was no hope
for him; and for that reason I wanted all the more
to see him before it. happened. I thought I might com-
fort him ; for oh, it’s a dreadful thing to die in that
way, when a man’s in his full strength.” She could
say no more. Her distress of mind was excessive *