The breakfast was finished and Colonel Peyton was about to leave them when he turned to Bob abruptly.
“By the way,” he said, “wasn’t it Mr. Vance who bought Snowball?”
“Yes; it was, dad. I wonder how Madame treats her! It seems to me that I’ve heard some awful stories about the way she uses her darkies.”
“When she whips them she does whip dreadfully,” said Jeanne. “But I only know of once that she had Snowball whipped. And you are the Colonel Peyton who bought her?” Then she told them of Tenny, Snowball’s mother.
“That was why you started when you heard my name, was it not?” asked the Colonel.
“Yes, sir.”
“I wondered just a little at the cause of it,” remarked the officer as he left them. “Now, girls, be good.”
“I don’t want to go to Vicksburg a bit,” confided Bob to Jeanne as they reëntered the former’s tent. “I just love soldiering. Besides I want to be near dad. Suppose he should be wounded. He’d die if I was not right there to look after him. I’m not going to say anything, but it will take a regular guard to keep me with Aunt Sally.”
“But if he wishes it,” said Jeanne to whom her father’s lightest wish was law. “You will have to stay then. He knows best.”
“It won’t be best for me to be away from him,” said Bob, rebelliously. “I should imagine all sorts of things were happening to him.”