The train came along early, however, and we were on it, and off to Culpeper, all our troubles forgotten, for every mile was bringing us nearer to Dan. As soon as we got off I saw quite a number of soldiers belonging to Dan’s command. Many of them were known to me personally. They came up and welcomed me back to Dixie, and congratulated me on my husband’s gallantry and probable promotion, and I sent word to Dan by them that I was there.
He came--the raggedest, most widowed-looking officer! But weren’t we happy!
“Oh, Dan!” I cried, after the first rapture of greeting, “I got it so it would do for a captain or a major or a colonel or a general. Didn’t I do right?”
“What are you talking about, Nell? Got what?”
He looked as if he feared recent adventures had unsettled my intellect.
“Your uniform, Dan,” I answered, but my countenance fell.
Just like a man! He had forgotten the principal thing--next to seeing mother, of course--that I had gone to Baltimore for.
“Your uniform, Dan. I’ve got it on. Here it is,” and I lifted my skirt and showed him my Balmoral. “Isn’t it a beautiful cloth? And I have kept it just as nice--not a fleck of mud on it. And here are the buttons on my cloak, and I have the gold lace in mother’s satchel, and----”
“Nell, dear, I haven’t time to talk about uniforms now. You will sleep here to-night. To-morrow I will try to get a room for you at Mr. Bradford’s. I will come in the morning or send you word what to do. I am so sorry to go, but I can’t stay a minute longer. Good-by, my darling.”
I was waked the next morning by a voice under my window calling:
“Miss Nell! O Miss Nell!” and looking out I saw Dan’s body-servant, Sam, successor to poor Josh, who had died of smallpox.
“Mars Dan say, I fotch his love to you, an’ tell you you git right on dem nex’ kyars an’ go straight on ter Orange Court-house, case dar’s too much fightin’ ’roun’ here. An’ he gwine notify you dar when you kin come back. But he say dat if you hear dar’s fightin’ ’roun’ Orange Court-house, den you go straight on ter Richmond, an’ don’t you stop untwell you git dar.”
“But Mars Dan he say tell you p’intedly you mus’.”
“Ain’t he coming to tell me good-by, Sam?”
“Law, Miss Nell! how he gwine do dat when de Yankees is er--overrunnin’ de whole yuth? What’s guine ter become uv de country ef de major leave off fitten de Yankees to humorfy you?”