daughter,--the harum-scarum little Ginger,--who would rather dash across
the prairies on her pony, like a wild Comanche Indian, than play with
the finest doll ever imported from Paris.

There was a suit in her wardrobe, short skirt, jacket, leggins, and
moccasins, all made and beaded by the squaws. It was the gift of the
colonel's wife. Mrs. Dudley had hesitated some time before putting it in
one of the trunks that was to go back to Kentucky.

"You look so much like an Indian now," she said to Virginia. "Your face
is so sunburned that I am afraid your grandmother will be scandalised. I
don't know what she would say if she knew that I ever allowed you to run
so wild. If I had known that you were going back to civilisation I
certainly should not have kept your hair cut short, and you should have
worn sunbonnets all summer."

To Mrs. Dudley's great surprise, her little daughter threw herself into
her arms, sobbing, "Oh, mamma! I don't want to go back to Kentucky! Take
me to Cuba with you! Please do, or else let me stay here at the post.
Everybody will take care of me here! I'll just _die_ if you leave me in
Kentucky!"

"Why, darling," she said, soothingly, as she wiped her tears away and
rocked her back and forth in her arms, "I thought you have always
wanted to see mamma's old home, and the places you have heard so much
about. There are all the old toys in the nursery that we had when we
were children, and the grape-vine swing in the orchard, and the
mill-stream where we fished, and the beech-woods where we had such
delightful picnics. I thought it would be so nice for you to do all the
same things that made me so happy when I was a child, and go to school