He opened it and glanced over it, and then, throwing it towards his friend, walked steadily up the steps, and disappeared within the dark porch.
It was just three hasty lines from the great Collingwood himself.

That brave heart, in the midst of the din of victory, had found time to scrawl a word to his old schoolmate, and tell him that his boy had died like a hero, and that he regretted him like a son.
The old man sat that evening in the western gallery, tearless and alone, brooding over his grief.

Three times the curate had peeped in, and as often had retreated, fearful of disturbing the old man's solemn sorrow.

The autumn sun had gone down in wild and lurid clouds, and the gallery was growing dark and gloomy, when the white figure of a beautiful girl entering silently at the lower door came gliding up the darkening vista, past the light of the windows and the shadow of the piers, to where the old man sat under the high north window, and knelt at his feet, weeping bitterly.
It was Agnes Talbot, the daughter of his nearest neighbour and best friend, whom the curate had slyly sent for, thinking in his honest heart that she would make a better comforter than he, and rightly; for the old man, bending over her, lifted up his voice and wept, speaking for the first time since he heard of his bereavement, and saying, "Oh, my boy, my boy!" "He is gone, sir," said Agnes, through her tears; "and gone the way a man should go.

But there is another left you yet; remember him." "Aye, James," said he; "alas, poor James! I wonder if he knows it.