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“Here come the sogers, aunt!” cried Ike, at the door
“here they come in their bear skins!”

“In their bare skins!” said Mrs. Partington, glancing
out of the window into the cold, towards the weathercock
that had looked obstinately east for three days,
much to the danger of a return of her rheumatism that
an east wind always induced, — so much so that she had
declared her determination to move in the vicinity of some
Catholic church, whose vane always points one way, —
“in their bare skins such a day as this! Highlanders, I
guess.”

She hastened to the door, and a company, with huge
and hideous caps, were then marching by. She saw that
she was sold.

“Ah!” said she, “this is one of the horrors of war, to
go looking so; and s'pose one of them poor creaturs
should fall down, — he 's so top-heavy his heels would
go up in the air, like a cornstalk witch, and all his brains
would run down into his head. I can't bear to look at
'em.”

She closed the door carefully, but she stood in the
entry and beat time to the music till it had got far past
the house.