“Why do you follow her?”
“Ah, Miss Cynthia,” he said gravely, “she is that ‘Special Messenger’ who has done us more damage than a whole Yankee army corps. We’ve got to stop her this time—and I reckon we will.”
The girl stirred the soup, salted it, peppered it, lifted the pewter spoon and tasted it. Presently she called for the peas.
About two o’clock that afternoon a row of half-famished Confederate cavalrymen sat devouring the best dinner they had eaten in months. There was potato soup, there was johnnycake, smoking hot coffee, crisp slices of fragrant bacon, an egg apiece, and a vegetable stew. Trooper after trooper licked fingers, spoon, and pannikin, loosening leather belts with gratified sighs; the pickets came cantering in when the relief, stuffed to repletion, took their places, carbine on thigh.
Flushed from the heat of the stove, arms still bared, the young hostess sat at table with the officer in command, and watched him in sympathy as he ate.
She herself ate little, tasting a morsel here and there, drinking at times from the cup of milk beside her.
“I declare, Miss Cynthia,” he said, again and again, “this is the finest banquet, ma’am, that I ever sat down to.”
She only thought, “The boy was starving!” and the indulgent smile deepened as she sat there watching him, chin resting on her linked hands.
At last he was satisfied, and a little ashamed, too, of his appetite, but she told him it was a pleasure to cook for him, and sent him off to the barn, where presently she spied him propped up in the loft window, a map spread on his knees, and his field glass tucked under one arm.
And now she had leisure to think again, and she leaned back in her chair by the window, bared arms folded, ankles crossed, frowning in meditation.