“Nothing.”
“Then I have a great boon to ask. Will you not give them to me?”
“Why, Miss Osborne, what can you do with them?” asked Haines, in surprise.
“I can at least keep them sacred. Perhaps I can find means of getting them to those for whom they are intended. Think of those wives and mothers watching, waiting for letters which will never come. Oh! give them to me, Lieutenant Haines, and you will sleep the sweeter to-night.”
“Your request is a strange one,” said the Lieutenant; “yet I can see no harm in granting it. You can have the letters, but the boys may have destroyed some of them by this time.”
“Thank you! Oh, thank you! You will never regret your kindness. I shall remember it.”
“I only ask you to think better of Yankees, Miss Osborne; we are not all monsters.”
Dinner was now over, and Sergeant Latham [pg 43]came to report that the hour for the halt was up, and to ask what were the Lieutenant’s orders.
“Have the troop ready, and we will return to camp. I see nothing more we can accomplish here,” answered the Lieutenant.
The Sergeant saluted and turned to go, when the officer stopped him with, “Say, Sergeant, you can gather up all those letters we captured and send them up here with my horse.”