“Yes,” said his companion regretfully, “but we are mighty sorry to see you in such low spirits.”
“Would you like to put me in real good spirits, you two?” asked Caroline, resolved to read these young dandies who were staying at home a lesson.
“Wouldn’t we!” they both cried together. “There’s nothing we would like better.”
“Well, I will tell you just what to do then,” returned the girl gravely and with deep meaning.
Everybody in the room, with the exception of Lieutenant Foray, was now listening intently.
“Start right out this very night,” said the girl, “and don’t stop till you get to where my real friends are, lying in trenches and ditches and earth-works between us and the Yankee guns.”
“But really, Miss Mitford,” began one, his face flushing at her severe rebuke, “you don’t absolutely mean that.”
“So far as we are concerned,” said one of the messengers, including his companions with a sweep of his hand, “we’d like nothing better, but they won’t let us go, and——”
“I know they won’t,” said Caroline, “but so far as you two gentlemen are concerned, I really mean it. Go and fight the Yankees a few days and lie in ditches a few nights until those uniforms you’ve got on look as if they might have been of some use to somebody. If you are so mighty anxious to do something for me, that is what you can do. It is the only thing I want, it is the only thing anybody wants.”
“Messenger here!” cried Lieutenant Foray as the two young officers, humiliated beyond expression by the taunts of the impudent young maiden, backed away and finally managed to make an ungraceful exit through the open door, followed by the titters of the messengers, who took advantage of the presence of the young girl to indulge in this grave breach of discipline.