Let them sit in the sunshine and tell their old stories, and fight their battles over again in the ears of some admiring recruit. How their dim eyes sparkle with senile enthusiasm! "There were two of the black devils, but I bayoneted them one after another—spitted them like larks; and serve them right, too. That's where I got this medal;" and here a fit of asthmatic coughing impedes the bloodthirsty narrative.

One can imagine the thrilling tales told round the fire towards night as the grim old warriors nestle cosily in the high wooden settle, while envious comrades watch them from afar. How heavily the poor wooden legs stump through the long, echoing corridors! Grey hairs, old wounds, the chill stiffness of decrepit age—well, thank God for their peaceful harbourage, where the weary limbs can rest in comfort.

There is a sweet old spot just where the long Lime avenue leads to old Ranelagh, adjoining the little plots of garden ground cultivated by the pensioners. One golden afternoon in September, when a fresh, pleasant breeze was rippling the limes, a girl in brown came down the avenue, and, as she tripped past the gnarled and twisted tree-boles, the slanting sunbeams seemed to meet and envelop her, until her shabby frock became like Cinderella's robe, and the green and golden banners overhead were a canopy of glory above her.

Who does not know the beauty of a lime avenue in the early autumn, when the very air is musical with faint soughing, and every leaf adds its tiny, vibrating voice to the universal symphony—when children and birds and sunshine, and all young living things, seem to have their own way, and play in unison.

The girl was coming up from the river in the direction of old Ranelagh, and she was walking with so light and airy a step that one could have imagined it set to music—for her feet, which were very small and pretty, though, alas! shabbily shod, seemed scarcely to touch the ground.

She was small, almost childish in stature, with a thin, erect little figure, and a pale oval face, framed in short, curly hair, and at first sight people always called her plain: "an insignificant, puny little thing"—that was what they said until they saw her eyes—and they were the most wonderful and spirituelle eyes in the world. And after that they were not so sure of the plainness.

For comparisons are odious, and there is no hard and fast rule with respect to feminine beauty; at least, tastes differ, and here and there a Philistine might be found who would be ready to swear that dark spirituelle eyes, brimful of intelligence and animation, with a mirthful sparkle underneath, were worth a score of pink-and-white beauties, in spite of their fine complexions and golden hair.

Just at the end of the avenue two old pensioners were sitting; and at the sight of them, and at the sound of their raised voices, the girl began smiling to herself. Then she stepped quietly across the grass, picking her way daintily, until only a tree divided her from the old men; and there she stood shaking with silent laughter.

"I tell you it is a lee, Jack; there were three of them, as sure as my name is Fergus McGill. Look here"—and here the speaker rose stiffly to his feet. He was a tall old man, with a long grey beard, and the pinned-up sleeve and the filmy look of the sightless eyes told their own tale. His breast was covered with decorations and medals, and in spite of his high cheek-bones, his massive, almost gigantic, figure and grand face would have become an Ajax.

His companion was a short, sturdy man, with a droll physiognomy; his light, prominent blue eyes had the surprised look of a startled kitten, and he had a trick of wrinkling his forehead as he talked until his eyebrows disappeared; and when he took off his cocked hat his stubby grey hair looked as stiff as Medusa's crest of snakes.

Wide-awake Jack was the name by which his mates accosted him—in reality Corporal Marks. He, too, was decorated, and had a wooden leg, which he found useful in conversation, when emphasizing some knotty point. He was tapping the ground pretty smartly at this moment, as he cut himself another quid of tobacco.

"Lees!" he returned, in a huffy voice, "it is the truth and nothing but the truth, and I'll take my oath to that."

But here a little peal of girlish laughter interrupted him. These two old men loved each other like David and Jonathan, or Damon and Pythias, or like any other noble pair of friends, and would have died for each other, and yet would wrangle and argue and spar fifty times a day; and the chief bone of contention was a certain episode—on an Indian battle-field half a lifetime before.

Human nature is sadly faulty—and even in Chelsea Hospital there were mischievous spirits; and on cold, windy nights, when old bones ached, and there was general dullness, and the draughts made one shiver and huddle round the fire—then would one or another slyly egg on Sergeant McGill—or Corporal Marks—with some such question as this:

"Was it three of them Sepoys that McGill bayoneted before he got that sword-thrust—or only two?"

Or perhaps more cunningly and artfully,—

"I wish I had nabbed two of those dratted Sepoys like McGill. Marks can tell that story best——"

"Two, John Perks!" interrupted McGill, wrathfully, "it was three that I killed with my own hand, and the third was so close to me that I could see the whites of his eyes—and the devil's smile on his wicked lips—and I laughed as I ran him through, for I thought of those poor women and children—and it is the goot English I am speaking, for I have forgotten the Gaelic, I have lived so long in the land of the Sassenachs—not but what the Gaelic is milk and honey in the tongue that speaks it."

When that little mocking laugh reached their ears, both the old men reddened, like children discovered in a fault. Then they drew themselves up and saluted gravely; but the girl's eyes were full of mirth and mischief.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourselves, you two, quarrelling over a silly old battle, that every one else has now forgotten? One would think you were heathens, and not Christians at all, to hear you talk in that sanguinary style." The girl's voice was deep, but very clear and full, and there was a curious timbre in it that somehow lingered in one's memory—it was so suggestive of sweetness and pathos.

"Are you fery well, Miss Ward? Ah, it is always a good thing when one has the joke ready,"—and Sergeant McGill's tone was full of dignity,—"but it is not quarrelling that we are after, Miss Ward—only a little difference of opinion."

"Yes, I know. But what does it matter, McGill, how many of those poor wretches you killed?" But she might as well have spoken to the wind.

"It was three, Miss Ward," returned McGill, obstinately; "and if you had seen the sight that Jack and I saw you would not be calling them poor, for they were the devil's sons, every one of them, and their hearts was black as sin, and it was the third man that I got by the throat; and when Jack came up——" But here the girl shrugged her shoulders, and a little frown came to her face.

"Yes, I know, but please spare me those horrible details," and then she laughed again; but there were tears in her eyes. "I daresay there were more than three if the truth were known. Corporal, why do you vex him with contradiction? If you were in another part of the field how could you know what he did?"

"Ah, it is the goot English that Miss Ward speaks," murmured McGill; but Corporal Marks struck in.

"Hold your tongue, McGill—you are like a woman for argifying—argle-barking, as Sergeant Drummond calls it—from noon to night. This was how it was, Miss Ward. Our company was scattered, and I found myself suddenly in the corner of the rice-field where McGill was. There was a barricade of dead Sepoys round him, and he had his foot on one of them, and had got another by the throat; and then——" But a peremptory gesture stopped him. "Thank you, I