. You are a guest."

"What are you?" asked Jeanne curiously.

"The Colonel's daughter, and the child of the regiment. What is your name?"

"Jeanne Vance. I live in New York city."

"That is a long way from here," said Bob. "Do you mind telling me why you
came down here?"

"I think I should like to," replied Jeanne gazing at the trim figure of
the girl admiringly. She was clad in a suit of gray cloth consisting
of a skirt and close fitting jacket with epaulets upon the shoulders.
A cap of the same material was perched jauntily upon her raven black
hair. Her face, piquant and sparkling, was tanned a healthy brown through
which the red of her cheeks glowed brightly. Jeanne thought that she
had never seen a more charming girl, and, rebel though she knew she was,
she felt her heart drawn toward her.

"Yes, I think that I should like to tell you," she repeated, and then
as rapidly as possible she told of her mission and the events that had
followed its execution.

Bob listened attentively.

"It was awfully mean in your aunt to treat you the way she did," she
commented as Jeanne finished her story. "You are a brave girl even if you
are a Yankee, and I like you. Father says there are some nice ones, but
I reckon that they haven't so awfully many brave ones among them, or we
wouldn't be whipping them so."

"Whipping them?" cried Jeanne aghast. "What do you mean by whipping them?
We were doing all the whipping the last I knew anything about it."

"Well, you certainly haven't heard the news lately then," rejoined Bob.
"If you had, you would have learned that General Bragg had invaded
Tennessee and Kentucky and that the Confederates have both those states
back again. I tell you the Yankees are just 'skedaddling' before him."

"It can't be true," wailed Jeanne. "Kentucky and Tennessee both taken from
us when we fought so hard to get them? Surely it is not true!"

"But it is," asserted Bob positively. "And that is not the greatest news:
General Lee has not only driven McClellan from in front of Richmond, but
he has invaded Maryland and we expect to hear at any time that Washington
has fallen into our hands."

"Is it true?" asked Jeanne again turning so pale that Bob thought she was
going to faint.

"Here, drink this!" Bob tipped up her canteen of water to Jeanne's lips.
"I did not know that Yankees cared so much for such things."

"Cared for such things," echoed Jeanne indignantly. "Of course we care.
How could any