the brown bearded man nodded, and gently blew smoke at the
ceiling. "Now, tell me. When you lived at home--and afterwards in your
cabin--did your father come to see you often?"

Virgie's sunny head nodded in emphatic asseveration. "Yes, sir. Often."

"_How_ often?" asked the bearded man.

Virgie's fingers twisted themselves deep in her dress.

"I--I don't know, sir. But heaps of times."

"Good again," and the questioner actually smiled. "When your father
came, did he ever wear clothes that--that were not his own?"

Virgie turned a side-long look on her father but, as he could not help,
her puzzled eyes went back to the General.

"Well--well, lots of our men don't have hardly _any_ clo's," she said
pathetically.

Another smile broke the sternness of the General's face.

"That isn't what I mean," he explained gently. "Did he ever wear a coat
of blue--a _Yankee_ uniform?"

"_General_!" broke in Harris.

"Lieutenant!" Grant frowned. He turned back to Virgie and coaxed her a
little.

"Well? Tell me!"

With one bare big toe twisted under her foot and fingers interlocked in
agony the child turned a look of pure anguish on her silent, grave faced
father. This was torture--and she could not escape.

"Oh, Daddy, Daddy!" she burst forth with a wail of tragedy in her voice.
"_What must I tell him_?"

The father's lips, which had been closed against the pain that racked
him, softened with the perfect trust which went into his gentle command.

"The _truth_, Virgie. Whatever the General asks."

The General's observant eyes rested on the proud Southerner for an
instant, noted that his face was quite without anxiety, then went back
to the little child.

"Well, did he?" he asked.

"Y-y-y-es, sir," answered Virgie with a gulp.

The General nodded and his face grew grave again.

"I wonder if you even know what it means. A _spy_!"

"Yes, sir," said the Littlest Rebel, and dropped her eyes.

"Hm. And do you remember how many times he came that way?"

"Yes, sir," came the instant answer, and she threw up her head.
"_Once_."

"_Once?_" echoed the General, surprised. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir," she answered. She drew herself up proudly, forgetting the
poor, tattered dress, and her clear eyes rested fearlessly on two others
that read through them down into the pure whiteness of her soul.

"_Think!_" said the quiet voice again, while the perspiration started
out on the forehead of more than one listener. "And r