he may--" began Aladdin.

"Pretty!" said the girl.

She went away, and he heard her clucking to the chickens. After a time
she came back. Aladdin was waiting with a plan.

"Don't move," he said, "or you'll be shot."

"Rubbish!" said the girl. She leaned casually back from the hole, and
he could hear her moving away and clucking to the chickens. Again she
returned.

"Thank you for not shooting," she said.

There was no answer.

"Are you dead?" she said.

When he came to, there was a bright light in Aladdin's eyes, for a
lantern swung just to the left of his head.

"I thought you were dead," said the girl, still from her point of
advantage. The lantern's light was in her face, too, and Aladdin saw
that it was beautiful.

"Won't you help me?" he said plaintively.

"Were you ever told that you had nice eyes?" said the girl.

Aladdin groaned.

"It bores you to be told that?"

"My dear young lady," said Aladdin, "if you were as kind as you are
beautiful--"

"How about your horse kicking me to a certain place? That was what you
started to say, you know."

"Lady--lady," said Aladdin, "if you only knew how I'm suffering, and I'm
just an ordinary young man with a sweetheart at home, and I don't want
to die in this hole. And now that I look at you," he said, "I see that
you're not so much a girl as an armful of roses."

"Are you by any chance--Irish?" said the girl, with a laugh.

"Faith and of ahm that," said Aladdin, lapsing into full brogue; "oi'm a
hireling sojer, mahm, and no inimy av yours, mahm."

"What will you do for me if I help you?" said the girl.

"Anything," said Aladdin.

"Will you say 'God save Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate
States of America,' and sing 'Dixie'--that is, if you can keep a tune.
'Dixie''s rather hard."

"I'll 'God bless Jefferson Davis and every future President of the
Confederate States, if there are any,' ten million times, if you'll help
me out, and--"

"Will you promise not to fight any more?"

A long silence.

"No."

"You needn't do the other things either," said the girl, presently. Her
voice, oddly enough, was husky.

"I thought it would be good to see a Yankee suffer," she said after a
while, "but it isn't."

"If you could let a ladder down," said Aladdin, "I might be able to get
up it."

"I'll get one," said the girl. Then she appeared to reflect. "No," she
said; "we must wait till dark. There are people about, and they'd kill
you. Ca