you
getting up in the middle of the night to make coffee for me."

"I have not got up," she answered quietly; "I have not been to bed."

"That makes matters worse," he exclaimed; but, nevertheless, he drank
the coffee and was glad of it, while she sat on the box and watched him.

"Put on your shawl and wrap something over your head," he said, "the dew
will soak you through. Look, your hair is all wet."

Presently she spoke. "I wish you would do something for me, John," for
she called him John now. "Will you promise?"

"How like a woman," he said, "to ask one to promise a thing without
saying what it is."

"I want you to promise for Bessie's sake, John."

"Well, what is it, Jess?"

"Not to go on this sortie. You know you can easily get out of it if you
like."

He laughed. "You little silly, why not?"

"Oh, I don't know. Don't laugh at me because I am nervous. I am afraid
that--that something might happen to you."

"Well," he remarked consolingly, "every bullet has its billet, and if it
does I don't see that it can be helped."

"Think of Bessie," she said again.

"Look here, Jess," he answered testily, "what is the good of trying to
take the heart out of a fellow like this? If I am going to be shot I
can't help it, and I am not going to show the white feather, even for
Bessie's sake; so there you are, and now I must be off."

"You are quite right, John," she said quietly. "I should not have liked
to hear you say anything different, but I could not help speaking.
Good-bye, John; God bless you!" and she stretched out her hand, which he
took, and went.

"Upon my word, she has given me quite a turn," reflected John to
himself, as the troop crept on through the white mists of dawn. "I
suppose she thinks that I am going to be plugged. Perhaps I am! I wonder
how Bessie would take it. She would be awfully cut up, but I expect that
she would get over it pretty soon. Now I don't think that Jess would
shake off a thing of that sort in a hurry. That is just the difference
between the two; the one is all flower and the other is all root."

Then he fell to wondering how Bessie was, and what she was doing, and if
she missed him as much as he missed her, and so on, till his mind came
back to Jess, and he reflected what a charming companion she was, and
how thoughtful and kind, and breathed a secret hope that she would
continue to live with them after they were married. Unconsciously they
had arrived at that point of i