However, on opening his purse it was empty of silver, and he had to make amends by promising to meet his little friend in the same spot at the same hour next day, and to bring the sixpence with him, bidding her, meanwhile, tell her mother she had seen a gentleman who would bring her the money for the bowl next day.

The child, entirely trusting him, went on her way comforted.

On his return home he found an invitation awaiting him to dine in Bath the following evening, to meet some one whom he specially wished to see.

He hesitated for some little time, trying to calculate the possibility of giving the meeting to his little friend of the broken bowl and of still being in time for the dinner-party in Bath; but finding this could not be, he wrote to decline accepting the invitation on the plea of 'a pre-engagement,' saying to us, 'I cannot disappoint her, she trusted me so implicitly.'"] [Footnote 1411: Miss Florence Nightingale has related the following incident as having occurred before Sebastopol:--"I remember a sergeant who, on picket, the rest of the picket killed and himself battered about the head, stumbled back to camp, and on his way picked up a wounded man and brought him in on his shoulders to the lines, where he fell down insensible.

When, after many hours, he recovered his senses, I believe after trepanning, his first words were to ask after his comrade, 'Is he alive ?' 'Comrade, indeed; yes, he's alive--it is the general.' At that moment the general, though badly wounded, appeared at the bedside.