"We shall be glad to fix up our faces in the old style," said Ruggles, while his companion nodded assent. If she had asked them to cut off their heads they would have unhesitatingly agreed to do it.
"No doubt we've changed somewhat," said Bidwell, "but not one half so much as you."
"As I!" she repeated in astonishment; "why, I am just the same," and she looked down at her dress, as if seeking the explanation of his remark; "I haven't changed a bit."
"Not in goodness and all that sort of thing, but we left a little girl and now I'm blessed if we don't find a young woman, and yet it's the same little girl after all."
The maidenly blush darkened her face and she laughed.
"You couldn't expect me to stand still all these years."
"No; though we would have been glad if you had done so."
The three were standing apart, the others with commendable delicacy leaving them to themselves. Nellie laid her arm on the sleeve of Ruggles, and looking up yearningly in his face she asked:
"Being as him and me was on different sides, I haven't seen or heard a thing of him since we parted in San Francisco, but I hope all has gone well with him."
"Me and him was thrown together once or twice and I met him after Gettysburg, where neither of us got a scratch, which is more than tens of thousands of others can say. Then I seen him in front of Petersburg, where we had the same good luck agin, but in the fighting round there we lost track of each other. Are you worried about him, little gal?"
"Very much," she mournfully replied; "never once did Vose Adams come back from Sacramento without one or two letters from him, but he has now done so twice, and I haven't heard a word. I fear father is dead; if he is, my heart is broken and I shall die too."
What could they say to cheer her, for Vose Adams made still another journey westward with the same dismal emptiness of the mail bag, so far as she was concerned. Every one did his utmost to cheer her, but none succeeded. The ground taken was that the parent had set out on his return, but had been hindered by some cause which would be explained when he finally arrived. When not one of the men himself believed the story, how could he hope to make the mourning daughter believe it?