After eyeing Dick closely for a time, he said, " Where do you come from, my boy V " Stokencross," replied Dick. " And where are you going to ?', " Why do you ask V "Because —excuse me—but I could see with half an eye that you are on the tramp." " Going to —well, I don't know," replied Dick, with a tone of sad ness in his voice. " Don't know, my little lad—that sounds badly. What is your name V " Dick—Richard Talbot." " Ah—and what are your father and mother." " What do you mean ?" asked Dick, irately. " What trade is it ?" it No—l think you are a cut above that," said the sergeant, with a little smile, while slapping his regimental pantaloons with his cane. " Well V he added, enquiringly, with an eye to business. "They are dead—both dead long ago, sir," said Dick, with a sudden' sob in his throat, for though he could barely recall their memory, he felt, somehow, very lonely and desolate just then. "My father was an officer, who served and died in India."

A subtle change came over the old sergeant's face as he heard the boy. " Ah," said he, and he sipped the last of his grog, while, as Dick spoke, he looked wistfully at him, and there was in his heart that emotion which Sterne describes the son of poor Lieutenant Lefevre feeling, when ho first met Corporal Trim, and, in his loneliness, saw, in a soldier, "a friend." " What was your father's regi ment?" asked the sergeant, in a kindly tone. " The 20th Bengal Infantry." " Oh—the old Bth Punjaub," said the sergeant. "They were with us in the China war at Pekin, six and twenty years ago. By Jove ! how time runs on ! How many fine fel lows I have seen three volleys fired over since then ; how many shovelled away without coffin or volley— buried where they fell—buried in unconsecrated ground, as the par sons say : though the hearts of many of these English lads would have consecrated Grand Cairo." The sergeant seemed to say this to himself, with tho nearest ap proach to a sigh, while mechani cally refilling his briar-root. 