The letter was finished and read aloud to George, who faintly nodded his thanks, and then the message was sent on its way to the North.
CHAPTER XII.
GETTING READY.
“Oh, I’ve such perfectly splendid news this morning. We are going to Washington right away, you and I, for Will says so in his letter. You see George is a great deal,—George can’t,—well, George isn’t very well;” and quite delighted with the happy turn she had given her words, Rose skipped around Annie’s cottage like a bird, lighting at last upon a stool at Annie’s feet, and asking if she were not glad. “Why, how white you are!” she exclaimed, as she observed the paleness of Annie’s cheek. “What makes you? Don’t you want to go?”
Annie was not deceived by Rose’s abrupt turn. She knew that George was worse, else he had never sent for her: and hence the sudden faintness, which Rose’s gay badinage could not shake off at once.
“Did your husband write, or mine?” she asked, and Rose replied,
“Will, of course. George has never written, you know.”
“Yes, I know;” and in Annie’s voice there was a tone approaching nearer to bitterness than any that Rose had ever heard from her. “Where is the letter? Let me read it for myself.”
But Rose had found it convenient to leave the letter at home, and so she answered,
“I did not bring it with me. I can tell you all there is in it.”