Then the cavalry received marching orders. The night after I heard it I determined to tell Dan of a decision I had come to. Milicent had not spoken, but I knew the drift of her thoughts and purposes. We had not heard once from mother and Bobby since she left them in Baltimore. Milicent was going to them, and I had made up my mind to go with her. There was no return to Baltimore by flag of truce; the only way to get there was to run the blockade, a most dangerous and doubtful undertaking at this period of the war. But Milicent’s boy was in Baltimore, and mother was there. She had come to me; she would go to them, and I intended to go with her. My heart was set on seeing mother. To be left alone now by both Milicent and Dan would drive me crazy; for Milicent to run the blockade alone would serve me as ill. Besides, I wanted some things for myself, some pins and needles, and nice shoes and pocket handkerchiefs and a new hat and a new cloak, and I wanted a new uniform for Dan. Dan had had no new uniform since his first promotion, a long time ago. He was an officer of high rank, and he was still wearing his old private’s uniform. He had traveled through rain and snow and mud, and had slept on the ground and fought battles in it. Though I had many times cleaned that uniform, darned it, patched it, turned it, scoured it, done everything that was possible to rejuvenate it, my shabby-looking soldier was a continual reproach to me. When Dan would come to see me I used to make him wrap up in a sheet or blanket while I worked away on his clothes with needle and thread, soap and water and smoothing irons. I was ready to run the blockade for a new uniform for Dan if for nothing else, but to tell him that I was going to run the blockade--there was the rub! Evening came and Dan with it, and the telling had to be done somehow. “Dan,” I began, patting the various patches on his shabby knee, “I want you to have a new uniform.” “Wish me a harp and a crown, Nell! One’s about as easy as the other. You’ll have to take it out in wanting, my girl.” “I expect I could buy Confederate cloth in Baltimore.” “Maybe--if you were there.” “Dan, I think I’ll slip across the border and buy you a Confederate uniform, gold lace and all, from a Yankee tradesman, and then slip back here with it, and behold you in all the glory of it. Wouldn’t that be nice, Dan?” “Rather!” Dan took in his patches at a glance, perhaps by way of mental comparison between himself in this and himself in the imaginary new uniform. But I saw he did not understand me at all--I had to make things plain. “Dan,” I said, “I am going to Baltimore.” “What?” he thundered. “I am going to run the blockade with Millie.” “Have you lost your senses?” “No, Dan. But I’m going to run the blockade with Millie--to get you a new uniform.” “Nell, don’t be a goose!” “And some shirts and some socks and some pins and needles--and I want to see mother--and Bobby--and--I’m going.”