To his approval of your conduct in the assault last night you owe this distinguished mark of Lord Wellington's favor, which, I hope, will be duly appreciated by you, and serve to increase your zeal for that service in which you have already distinguished yourself.
Believe me that I am most happy in being made the medium of this communication, and have the honor to be, Very truly yours, T.PICTON.
I read and re-read this note again and again.

Every line was conned over by me, and every phrase weighed and balanced in my mind.

Nothing could be more gratifying, nothing more satisfactory to my feelings; and I would not have exchanged its possession for the brevet of a lieutenant-colonel.
"Halloo, Orderly!" cried I, from the window, as I hurriedly sealed my few words of acknowledgment, "take this note back to General Picton, and here's a guinea for yourself." So saying, I pitched into his ready hand one of the very few which remained to me in the world.

"This is, indeed, good news!" said I, to myself.

"This is, indeed, a moment of unmixed happiness!" As I closed the window, I could hear Mike pronouncing a glowing eulogium upon my liberality, from which he could not, however, help in some degree detracting, as he added: "But the devil thank him, after all! Sure, it's himself has the illigant fortune and the fine place of it!" Scarcely were the last sounds of the retiring horseman dying away in the distance, when Mike's meditations took another form, and he muttered between his teeth, "Oh, holy Agatha! a guinea, a raal gold guinea to a thief of a dragoon that come with the letter, and here am I wearing a picture of the holy family for a back to my waistcoat, all out of economy; and sure, God knows, but may be they'll take their dealing trick out of me in purgatory for this hereafter; and faith, it's a beautiful pair of breeches I'd have had, if I wasn't ashamed to put the twelve apostles on my legs." While Mike ran on at this rate, my eyes fell upon a few lines of postscript in Picton's letter, which I had not previously noticed.
"The official despatches of the storming are, of course, intrusted to senior officers, but I need scarcely remind you that it will be a polite and proper attention to his Royal Highness to present your letters with as little delay as possible.