"Quiet!" said I. "When your eyes are showering sparks of fire all over me!"
"Daisy," he said, "those rose leaves in your cheeks are the very prettiest bits of colour I ever saw in my life."
"But we are wandering from the subject," I said.
"No, we are not," he said decidedly. "You are my one subject at all times."
"Not when you are training soldiers?" I said half laughing. But he gave me a look which silenced me. And it nearly took away all the courage I had, for everything I wanted to say to him and had found it so difficult to say.
"Christian," I began again after an interval, "were the troops that were sent over into Virginia just now, sent, do you suppose, to meet Beauregard?"
"I suppose so."
"You are not going?" - I asked, because the question was torturing me.
He looked down at me again, a steady, fixed, inquiring look, that grew very full of affection before he answered,
"I hope so, Daisy."