“But will you?” and Annie grasped her shoulder firmly. “Win you tell me all? Tell me what it is about my husband, and why he never writes? Is George dying, and is that the reason why he sends for me? Tell me, Mrs. Mather, for I will not be put off longer.”
There was a look in the blue eyes before which Rose fairly quailed, and turning her face away she answered truthfully,
“Yes, George is very sick. He will never come home again; and he wants you there when he dies.”
Softly the quivering lips repeated, “When he dies!” poor Annie wondering if it could be George who was meant. Had the evil she most dreaded come upon her at last? Must she give her husband up and live without him? How dark, how cheerless the future looked, stretching before her through many years it might be! Was there no hope,—no help? It was Annie’s darkest hour of trial, and for a moment the spirit fainted, refusing to bear the load which, though more than half-expected, had come so sudden at the last. But Annie was not one to murmur long, and Rose Mather never forgot the sweet submissive smile which played over her white face as she said,
“Whether George lives or dies, God will do all things well.”
After this there was no more repining, no more bitterness of tone, nothing save humble submission to whatever might be in store for her.
Rose was very enthusiastic on the subject of the Washington trip, and Annie listened eagerly to her suggestions.
“It is absurd for two young ladies like us to travel alone,” Rose said. “We must have some nice elderly woman to matronize the party. I mean to write to mother to send up one from Boston.”
“Miss Marthers,” interrupted the Widow Simms, who sat by the window knitting for some soldier boy, “Miss Marthers, don’t be a simpleton, a sendin’ down to Boston for somebody to marternize you and Miss Graham, when you can find forty of ’em nearer home. Let me go. Eli and John are there, you know; and ’tain’t such a great ways to Richmond, where my poor Isaac is. Did I tell you I got a letter last night from a strange woman up in New Hampshire, whose boy was in the battle? The rascals let your brother write to her, because there was something between her Charlie and a rebel officer who was good to the child, when he was dyin’. There’s now and then a streak of good amongst ’em.”
“Yes; but what of Tom?” Rose asked eagerly, forgetting Washington in her anxiety to hear from her brother, of whom not one word had been known after his name had appeared in the paper as one of the prisoners at Richmond, together with that of a boy called “Isaac Simpson.”