Orders

"Well, you do know how to sing!" he said softly, as I was
giving him his tea and toast.

"I am glad you think so."

"Think so! Why, Daisy, positively I was inclined to bless
gunpowder for the minute, for having brought me here. Now if
you would only sing something else - Don't you know anything
from Norma, or II Trovatore?"

"They would be rather out of place here."

"Not a bit of it. Create a soul under the ribs - Well, this is
vile tea."

"Hush, Preston; you know the tea is good, like everything else
here."

"I know no such thing. There is nothing good in this place, -
except you, - and I suppose that is the reason you have chosen
it for your abode. I can't imagine how Aunt Randolph came to
let you, though."

"She let me come to take care of you."

"I'm not worth it. What's a man good for, when there is only
half of him left? I should like just to get into one other
field, and let powder take the other half."

"Hush, Preston! hush; you must not talk so. There's your
mother."

"My mother won't think much of me now, I don't know why she
should. You never did, even when I was myself."

"I think just as much of you now as ever, Preston. You might
be much more than your old self, if you would."

Preston frowned and rolled his head over on the pillow.

"Confounded!" he muttered. "To be in such a den of Yankees!"