"Yes, I do; in the first place I know that you are a very kind and polite little girl who is ready to give up her place to a lame soldier. Next, I know that your father's name is Mr. Henry, Lane, Bradford, and that yours is Bessie Rush Bradford, and that you look very much like your aunt, Helen Duncan. Then I know that you have a little sister, whose name is—let me see, well, I think her name is Margaret, after your mother; and you have two brothers, Harry and Fred. There is another little one, but I have forgotten his name."
"Franky," said Bessie; "and we have baby, too."
"Ah, well, I have never made baby's acquaintance. And this is not your home, but you live in New York, at No. 15 —— street, where I have spent many a pleasant hour. And more than all this, I know there is a lady in Baltimore named Elizabeth Rush, who loves you very much, and whom you love; and that a few days since you wrote a letter to her and told her how sorry you were that her brother who was 'shooted' had had his foot cut off."
While the gentleman was saying all this, Bessie had slipped off her stone and come up to him, and now she was standing, with one little hand on his knee, looking up eagerly into his face.
"Why, do you know the lady whom I call my Aunt Bessie?" she said.
"Indeed I do; and now if you are so sorry for Aunt Bessie's brother, would you not like to do something to help him?"
"I can't," said Bessie; "I am too little."
"Yes, you can," said the colonel, "you can give me a kiss, and that would help me a great deal."
"Why," said Bessie, again, "do you mean that you are Colonel Yush, dear Aunt Bessie's brother?"