"My love—my darling—let us go in and—"
"No. Now! now!"
To one thing the supremely afflicted are entitled in their sorrow—to be obeyed—and yet it is the last kindness that people commonly will do them. But Miss Jessamine did. Steadying her voice, as best she might, she read on, and the old soldier stood bareheaded to hear that first Roll of the Dead at Waterloo, which began with the Duke of Brunswick, and ended with Ensign Brown.[3] Five-and-thirty British Captains fell asleep that day on the bed of Honor, and the Black Captain slept among them.
[3] "Brunswick's fated chieftain" fell at Quatre Bras, the day before Waterloo, but this first (very imperfect) list, as it appeared in the newspapers of the day, did begin with his name, and end with that of an Ensign Brown.
There are killed and wounded by war, of whom no returns reach Downing Street.
Three days later, the Captain's wife had joined him, and Miss Jessamine was kneeling by the cradle of their orphan son, a purple-red morsel of humanity, with conspicuously golden hair.
"Will he live, Doctor?"
"Live? God bless my soul, ma'am! Look at him! The young Jackanapes!"