“Of course I did. I didn’t want him hanging around forever, did I? That’s the only way to finish them off. What do you want me to do—string a placard around my neck, saying, ‘No proposals received here. Apply at the office’? Would that make you feel any better? Well,” she continued, as the boy shrugged his shoulders, “if it doesn’t make any difference to you what I do, it doesn’t even make as much as that to me.” “Oh, it doesn’t? I think it does, though. You looked as if you enjoyed it pretty well while the Third Virginia was in the city.” “I should think I did,” said Caroline ecstatically. “I just love every one of them. They are going to fight for us and die for us, and I love them.” “Why don’t you accept one of them before he dies, then, and have done with it? I suppose it will be one of those smart young fellows with a cavalry uniform.” “It will be some kind of a uniform, I can tell you that. It won’t be any one that stays in Richmond.” “Now I see what it was,” said Wilfred, looking at her gloomily. “I had to stay in Richmond, and——” The boy choked up and would not finish. “Well,” said Caroline, “that made a heap of difference. Why, I was the only girl on Franklin Street that didn’t have a—some one she was engaged to—at the front. Just think what it was to be out of it like that! You have no idea how I suffered; besides, it is our duty to help all we can. There aren’t many things a girl can do, but Colonel Woolbridge—he’s one of Morgan’s new men, you know—said that the boys fight twice as well when they have a—sweetheart at home. I couldn’t waste an engagement on——” “And is that why you let them all propose to you?” rejoined the youth bitterly. “Certainly; it didn’t hurt me, and it pleased them. Most of ’em will never come back to try it again, and it is our duty to help all we can.” “And you really want to help all you can, do you?” asked Wilfred desperately. “Well, if I were to join the army would you help me—that way?” This was a direct question. It was the _argumentum ad feminam_ with a vengeance. Caroline hesitated. A swift blush overspread her cheek, but she was game to the core. “Why, of course I would, if there was anything I—could do,” she answered. “Well, there is something you can do.” He unrolled his package and seized the trousers by the waistband and dangled them before her eyes. “Cut those off,” he said; “they are twice too long. All you have to do is to cut them here and sew up the ends, so that they don’t ravel out.” Caroline stared at him in great bewilderment. She had expected something quite different. “Why, they are uniform trousers,” she said finally. “You are going to join the army?” She clapped her hands gleefully. “Give them to me.”