(You see I call her by her Christian name already!) "I should have risked everything, father, and have laid my whole heart open before her more than a year ago, but for the order which sent our regiment out to take its share in this great struggle of the Russian war.

No ordinary change in my life would have silenced me on the subject of all others of which I was most anxious to speak; but this change made me think seriously of the future; and out of those thoughts came the resolution which I have kept until this time.

For her sake, and for her sake only, I constrained myself to leave the words unspoken which might have made her my promised wife.

I resolved to spare her the dreadful suspense of waiting for her betrothed husband till the perils of war might, or might not, give him back to her.

I resolved to save her from the bitter grief of my death if a bullet laid me low.