Bessie said all this just as fast as her little tongue would go, and the colonel sat watching her with a very amused look on his face. "Upon my word, you are well posted, little one. I do not know that I could tell the story better myself; how did you learn so much?"
"Oh, Aunt Bessie put it in the letters she yote to mamma, and mamma told us about it, and Harry yeads and yeads it; and Maggie made a nice play about it. Harry gets on the yocking horse and plays he is Colonel Yush, and Fred is the soldier that you helped."
"Very good," said the colonel, "and what are you and Maggie?"
"Oh! we are Harry's soldiers, I mean your soldiers, and Franky is, too; and we have the nursery chairs for horses, and our dolls for sick soldiers, and we have the pillows for Sepoys, and we poke them; and nurse don't like it, 'cause she says we make a yumpus and a muss in the nursery."
"I should think so," said the colonel, laughing heartily.
"Will you tell me the story?" asked Bessie.
"I think I had better tell you another, since you know that so well," said Colonel Rush; "I will tell you one about a drummer boy."
But just as he began the story Bessie saw her father coming towards them, and in another minute he and the colonel were shaking hands and seeming so glad to see one another. Then Mr. Bradford turned and looked at the pretty lady, and the colonel said, "Yes, this is the lady of whom you have heard as Miss Monroe, now Mrs. Rush. She has taken charge of what is left of me."
"Isn't she perfaly lovely, papa?" asked Bessie, as Mr. Bradford took off his hat and shook hands with the lady, and she saw a pretty pink color come into her cheeks which made her look sweeter than ever. Papa looked as if he quite agreed with his little daughter, but he only smiled and said, "My Bessie speaks her mind on all occasions."