BARKET. I've been watching the byes mesilf. [_Coming down._] If a
little milithary sugar-plum like you, Miss Jenny, objects to not goin'
wid' 'em, what do you think of an ould piece of hard tack like me? I
can't join the regiment till I've taken you and Miss Madeline back to
Winchester, by your father's orders. But it isn't the first time I've
escorted you, Miss Jenny. Many a time, when you was a baby, on the
Plains, I commanded a special guard to accompany ye's from one fort to
anither, and we gave the command in a whisper, so as not to wake ye's
up.

JENNY. I told you to tell papa that I'd let him know when Madeline and
I were ready to go.

BARKET. I tould him that I'd as soon move a train of army mules.

JENNY. I suppose we must start for home again to-day?

BARKET. Yes, Miss Jenny, in charge of an ould Sargeant wid his arm in
a sling and a couple of convalescent throopers. This department of the
United States Army will move to the rear in half an hour.

JENNY. Madeline and I only came yesterday morning.

BARKET. Whin your father got ye's a pass to the front, we all thought
the fightin' in the Shenandoey Valley was over. It looks now as if
it was just beginning. This is no place for women, now. Miss Gertrude
Ellingham ought to go wid us, but she won't.

JENNY. Barket! Captain Heartsease left the regiment yesterday, and
he hasn't rejoined it; he isn't with them, now, at the head of his