After a while Stanley said pleasantly: “We haven’t exchanged names yet, and you haven’t told me why a regular is riding with us to-night.”
“On special service,” she said in a low voice.
“And your name and regiment?”
She did not appear to hear him; he glanced at her askance.
“You seem to be very young,” he said.
“The colonel of the Ninetieth Rhode Island fell at twenty-two.”
He nodded gravely. “It is a war of young men. I think Baring himself is only twenty-five. He’s breveted brigadier, too.”
“And you?” she asked timidly.
He laughed. “Thirty; and a thousand in experience.”
“I, too,” she said softly.