'In the mist of the morning of the 23d, my incomparably brave nephew and your brother, Philip Sidney, with but five hundred foot and seven hundred horsemen, advanced to the very walls of Zutphen.
'It was hard fighting against a thousand of the enemy. Philip's horse was killed under him, and alas! he heightened the danger by his fearless courage; for he had thrown off his cuisses to be no better equipped than Sir William Pelham, who had no time to put on his own, and, springing on a fresh horse, he went hotly to the second charge. Again there was a third onset, and our incomparable Philip was shot in the left leg.
'They brought him near me, faint from loss of blood, and he called for water. They brought him a bottle full, and he was about to raise it to his parched lips, when he espied a poor dying soldier cast greedy, ghastly eyes thereon. He forbore to drink of the water, and, handing the bottle to the poor wretch, said,—
'"Take it—thy need is greater than mine."'
'Oh! Philip! Philip!' Lady Pembroke said, 'in death, as in life, self-forgetting and Christ-like in your deeds.'
Lucy raised her eyes from the letter and they met those of her mistress with perfect sympathy which had no need of words.
'Doth my uncle say more, Lucy? Read on.'
'And,' Lucy continued, in the same low voice, which had in it a ring of mingled pride in her ideal hero and sorrow for his pain, 'my nephew would not take on himself any glory or honour when Sir William Russel, also sorely wounded, exclaimed,—