My Gertrude--my little Gertrude." Virgie leaned forward eagerly.
"Oh!" she said, in unaffected admiration, "She's _mighty_ pretty.
She's--" The child stopped suddenly, and raised her eyes.

"An' she's fat, too.

I reckon Gertrude gets lots to eat, doesn't she ?" "Why, yes," agreed the father, thinking of his comfortable Northern home; "of course.

Don't you ?" Virgie weighed the question thoughtfully before she spoke.
"Sometimes--when Daddy gets through the lines and brings it to me." The soldier started violently, wrenched back from the selfish dream of happiness that rose as he looked at the picture of his child.
"What! Is _that_ why your father comes ?" "Yes, sir." "I didn't know! I thought he came--" He rose to his feet and turned away, his thoughts atumble, a pang of parental pity gnawing at his heart; then he wheeled and faced her, asking, with a break in his husky voice: "And at other times--what do you eat, then ?" She made a quaint, depreciating gesture toward the appointments of her breakfast table.
"Blackberries--an'-- an' coffee made out of aco'ns." Again the troubled conqueror turned away.
"Oh, it's a shame!" he muttered between his teeth.

"A wicked shame!" He stood for a moment, silently, till Virgie spoke and jarred him with another confidence.
"My cousin Norris told me that the Yankees have bread every day; an' tea--an' milk--an' everything.