As if bent on tormenting both her auditors by talking of Jimmie, Rose kept on, wondering how he looked, if she should know him, what he would say, how he would act, and if he ever would come.
“I’m so glad you are here, Annie,” she said, “for you do everybody good you come in contact with, and I want you to talk to Jimmie, will you?”
Annie only smiled, but her cheeks burned with excitement, and Rose was about asking if her head didn’t ache, when a letter was brought in bearing the Washington postmark. Eagerly Rose broke it open, screaming with joy as she read that Jimmie had been released,—had taken the oath of allegiance, and was coming home to Rockland.
“He’ll be here,—let me see,—Thursday, on the three o’clock train. That’s to-morrow. Oh, I’m so glad!” and in her delight the little lady forgot that for the last week she had been playing sick, and leaping upon the carpet, danced about the room, kissing alternately her mother and Annie, and asking if they were ever so pleased in their lives.
“Oh, I forgot!” she suddenly exclaimed, as she saw the great tears dropping from Annie’s eyes, and guessed of what she was thinking. “I did not mean to make you sorry contrasting Jimmie’s coming home with that of poor George. Dear Annie, don’t cry,” and the chubby arms closed coaxingly round the now sobbing Annie’s neck. “Don’t cry. You’ll like Jimmie, I know, and if you don’t, I know you’ll like dear Tom. He’s perfectly splendid, and he gave his place to George, you know.”
Yes, Annie knew, but it only made her tears flow faster as she thought of Rose, so full of hope, her husband yet alive, and her brothers coming home, while she, without a friend on whom she could lean, was alone in her desolate widowhood. Excusing herself from the room, she sought her own pleasant chamber, and there alone poured out her grief into the ear of One who almost since she could remember had been the recipient of all her sorrows. And Annie had far more need of help than Rose suspected. She could not stay there and meet Jimmie Carleton face to face after what she had heard, while a return to the lonely cottage seemed impossible. Widow Simms’s home suggested itself to her mind; but if the prisoners were exchanged, and Isaac came home, she might be an intruder there, and besides, what truthful reason could she give to Rose for her strange conduct? It was a sad dilemma in which Annie found herself so suddenly placed, and more than an hour of solitary and prayerful reflection, found her still uncertain as to the course duty would dictate in the present emergency. It seemed expedient that she should go away, and when in the evening she joined Rose, who chanced to be alone, she suggested leaving her house, at least during Jimmie’s stay, and going either to the cottage in the Hollow, or to stay with Widow Simms.
In the utmost astonishment Rose listened to the proposal, and then replied:
“You go away because Jimmie is coming! Preposterous! Why, I want you here on his account, if nothing more. Besides, where will you go? Widow Simms has taken Susan to live with her at John’s request, and that little teenty place will not begin to hold three women with hoops!”
“You forget the widow does not wear them,” Annie suggested, her heart beginning to sink, notwithstanding her playful words.
“Yes, I know,” Rose replied; “but you are not going there. If you are in the way here with Jimmie, you’d surely be more in the way there with Isaac. Don’t you see?” and Rose looked as if this argument were altogether conclusive.