University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.
THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER'S WELCOME TO ROCKLAND.

ROSE had fretted herself into a headache, and as
Mrs. Carleton could not think of meeting her
returning prodigal in the presence of strangers,
there was no one to go up to meet him unless Annie
should consent to do so! But greatly to Rose's disappointment
Annie obstinately refused, while Mrs. Carleton,
too, said it would not be proper for Mrs. Graham to
go alone and meet a stranger whom she had never seen.

“Couldn't she tell him she was Annie, my adopted
sister?” Rose said, half poutingly. “What will he
think when he finds nobody there but Jake, who, I verily
believe, looks upon him as half a savage for having joined
the Southern army? I heard him, myself, tell Bridget
that Ben Arnold was coming to-day, meaning that horrid
traitor that gave up Yorktown, or something,” and having
thus betrayed her ignorance of Revolutionary history,
Rose bathed her aching head in eau-de-cologne,
and lay back upon her pillows, wondering what Jimmie
would say, and how he would manage to brave the gaping
people who were sure to stare at him as if he were
some monster. She hoped there would not be many
there, and of course there wouldn't, for who knew or
cared for Jimmie's coming?

More cared for Jimmie's coming than Rose suspected,
and the streets were full of men and boys of a
certain class, hastening to the depot to see the Rebel, as
they persisted in calling him, in spite of Billy Baker's
repeated suggestions that they soften it down somewhat
by prefixing the word “reformed.” Bill was very busy,
very important, very consequential that day, and quite
inclined to be very patronizing, and do the agreeable to
the man he had captured at Manassas. “Folks, or'to
overlook him,” he said, “and treat him half way decent,
for the best was apt to stumble, and there should neither
be hootin' nor hissin', if he could help it.”

Indeed, so impressed was Bill with the idea that the
responsibility of Jimmie's reception was pending upon
himself, that he deliberately knocked down two of the
ringleaders, who announced their intention to hoot and
to hiss as much as they pleased. Bill's warlike propensities
were pretty generally understood in Rockland, and
this energetic demonstration had the effect of quelling,
to a certain extent, the Babel which would otherwise
have reigned, when at last the train stopped before
the depot, and the expected lion appeared upon the
platform, his identity proven by Bill, who whispered,
“That's him, with the rowdy hat,—that's the chap;”
then, with a proud air of self-assurance, he stepped forward
and offered his hand to the embarrassed stranger,
who was looking this way and that, in quest of a familiar
face.

“Halloo, Corporal!” he called out with the utmost
sang froid, “you re-cog-nize me, I s'pose. I'm the critter
that took you in the Virginny woods. I've gin all them
contrabands to your sister, Miss Marthers. She and I
has got to be considerable intimate. I think a sight on
her,” he continued, as Jimmie showed no signs of reciprocating

the coarse familiarity other than by rather
haughtily offering his hand.

But Bill was not to be put down, for “wasn't he as
good as Corporal Carleton? hadn't they sustained to
each other the relation of captor and captive, and if there
were any preference, wasn't it in his favor?” He thought
so, and nothing abashed by Jimmie's evident disgust, he
was about announcing to him that a carriage was in
waiting, when Jake made his way through the crowd to
the spot where Jimmie stood. The sight of him suggested
a new idea to Bill, and bowing first to one and
then to the other, he said, “Ah, Mr. Jacob Sullivan, allow
me to introduce you to my friend, Corporal Carleton,
late of the Confederate army, supposed to be fitin' for
just such goods and chattels as you.”

The African's teeth were plainly visible at this novel
introduction, while the good-humored smile which broke
over the hitherto cold, haughty features of the stranger,
changed into a general laugh the muttered groans and
imprecations which the words “Confederate Army,” had
provoked. It was strange what a difference that smile
made in the looks of Jimmie's handsome face, removing
its haughty, sarcastic expression, and softening to a great
extent the feelings of the crowd, many of whom instinctively
dropped the brick-bats, stones, and bits of frozen
mud, with which they were prepared to pelt the Rebel's
carriage so soon as they should be in the rear. Still
they must have some fun, even if it were at Bill's expense,
and just as the latter was button-holing the persecuted
Jimmie, and escorting him to the carriage, one, more
daring than the others, proposed “three groans and a
tiger for the deserter.”

Instantly, hats, caps, and fists were flourished aloft,
and the air resounded with the most direful sounds imaginable,

as groan after groan came heaving up from the
leathern lungs of the crowd. With a fierce gesture of
impatience Jimmie turned upon them, his black eyes
flashing fire at what he deemed an insult offered to himself.
Whatever his faults had been, desertion was not
among the number, and he was about to say so, when
Bill, with imperturbable gravity, whispered to him,
“They don't mean you now, Corporal. It's me they're
hittin' a dig. You see, I did leave Washington in a
hurry. Don't mind 'em an atom; they're the off-scourin's
of the town,” and having piloted Jimmie safely
to the carriage door, Bill took off his own cap, and
swinging it around his head, shouted aloud, “Three
cheers for Corporal Carleton!”

For an instant there was a silence, the crowd a little
uncertain as to how far their loyalty might be impeached
by cheering for a Rebel; but when the dark, handsome
face, with its winning smile, was again turned toward
them, and they saw in it a strong resemblance to the
patriotic little lady whom even the lowest of them had
learned to regard with respect, their doubts were given
to the winds, and the ringleader, who carried in his
pocket a quantity of questionable eggs, designed for
use as the occasion might require, led off the cheers,
making the depot ring with the loud huzzas, interlarded
here and there by a groan or hiss from those not yet
won over to the popular party.

Lifting his hat gracefully, Jimmie bowed an acknowledgment,
and his lips moved as if about to speak, while
cries of “Hear, hear!” “Give us a speech!” “Let's
have your politics!” ran through the excited throng.
Standing close to Jimmie, who would fain have dispensed
with his suggestive presence, Bill whispered in his ear,
“Let 'er slide, Cop'ral. Go in strong for Uncle Sam, if

you don't want this new coat of yourn sp'ilt. There
ain't a rotten hen's nest in town but what was robbed
this mornin' on your account, and if they once git fairly
to work, it'll take mor'n me and Mr. Sullivan to stop
'em! Pitch in, then, to your sarmon.”

Jimmie's natural disposition prompted him to brave
the purloined contents of Rockland's hen's nests, but he
would not endanger his sister's carriage, and besides that,
he felt that submission to people so infinitely beneath
him was a part of his merited punishment; so, forcing
down his pride, he in a few well-chosen words, told his
breathless audience that though he had once proved
faithless to his country, none regretted it more than
himself, or was now a firmer friend to the Stars and
Stripes, the brief speech ending with the proposal of
three cheers for the Star Spangled Banner.

In a trice the whole crowd responded with might and
main, prolonging their yells with the cries of “Carleton!
Carleton forever!” and promises to make him police
justice in the spring, should he want to run for that very
agreeable office!

“Couldn't of done much better myself,” said the delighted
Bill, hovering about the window of the carriage
in which Jimmie had now taken his seat.

Thoroughly tired of the scene, Jimmie intimated to
Jake his wish to go home, and the iron greys sprang
quickly forward, but not until Jimmie had caught Bill's
parting words, “Call round and see a feller, won't you?
I'll show you the old gal. You know you asked me
about her in the Virginny woods.”

It seemed like a new world to Jimmie when, after they
had left the noisy crowd, they turned into the pleasant,
quiet street which wound up the hill to where the handsome

Mather mansion stood, every blind thrown back
and wreaths of smoke curling gracefully from every chimney,
for Rose, wishing to do something in honor of her
brother's return, had ordered the whole house to be
opened as if for a holiday, while every flower which could
possibly be spared from her conservatory, had been
broken from its stem, and fashioned into bouquets by
Annie's tasteful hands.

“Wouldn't it be splendid,” Rose said, as she lay watching
Annie at her task, “wouldn't it be splendid to hang
the Stars and Stripes in festoons across the hall, where
Jimmie will pass under them?”

Annie did not think it would. In her opinion Jimmie
was not deserving of such honor, and she said so, as
delicately as possible, adding that “were it Tom it would
be a very different thing.”

Rose knew that Annie was right, and so the Stars and
Stripes were not brought out to welcome the young man
now rapidly approaching. Annie was the first to catch
the sound of the carriage wheels, and when Rose turned
to ask if she really supposed Jimmie was there, she
found herself alone.

“She's gone to meet him, of course,” she said, “but I
most wish she had staid here, for I wanted to introduce
her myself. I hope she won't dislike him.”

Meantime in the parlor below, Mrs. Carleton sat waiting
for her boy,—not as Spartan mothers were wont to
wait for their sons returning from the war, but with a
yearning tenderness for the loved prodigal, blended with
loyal indignation for his sin. He was not coming to her
as a hero who had done what he could for his country,
but with a traitor's stain upon his fair name, which she
would gladly have wiped out. She heard the carriage as
it stopped, and heard the step on the piazza, not rapid

and bounding as it used to be, but slow and heavy, as if
uncertain which way to turn.

“I must go out to meet him,” she said, but all her
strength forsook her, and sinking upon the sofa, she
could only call out faintly, “Jimmie, my boy.”

He heard her, and almost before the words had left her
lips her Jimmie boy was kneeling at her feet, with his face
buried for an instant in her lap; then, with one burning
kiss upon her forehead, the proud James Carleton, who
in his early boyhood was scarcely ever known to acknowledge
that he was wrong, asked to be forgiven and
restored again to the confidence and love he had forfeited,
and with her hand upon his bowed head, the
mother forgave her boy, bidding him look up, that she
might see again the face she had once thought so handsome.
It was tear-stained now, and worn, and Mrs.
Carleton sighed as she detected upon it unmistakable
marks of reckless dissipation. Still it was Jimmie's face,
and it grew each moment more natural as the flush of
excitement deepened on the cheeks, and lent an added
brightness to the saucy, laughing eyes. The lines upon the
forehead and about the mouth would wear away in time,
Mrs. Carleton hoped, and parting the soft, black curls
clustering around the broad, white brow, she told him
why Rose was not there to meet him, and asked if he
would go up then to see her.

Rose heard them coming, and at the sound of the
familiar voice calling her name, the tears flowed in torrents,
and with her face buried in her pillows she received
her brother's first embrace. Very gently he
lifted up her head, and taking in his the little hot hands,
kissed again and again her childish face, and wiping her
tears away, asked, half seriously, half playfully, “if they
met in peace or war?”

“Oh, in peace, in peace!” Rose answered, and winding
her arms around his neck, she hugged and cried over
him, asking why he had been so naughty, when he knew
how badly they would feel, and why he had not interfered
to save poor Tom from a prisoner's fate.

He explained to her how that was impossible, but for
his treachery he had no excuse; he could only answer
that he was sorry, and ask again to be forgiven.

“I do not now believe the South all wrong,” he said.
“Many of them sincerely think they are fighting for their
firesides; others hardly know what they are fighting for;
while others again are impressed into the army and cannot
help themselves. As for me, I would gladly blot out
the past, for which I have no apology; but as that cannot
be, I would rather talk as little of it as possible.
Try, Rose, to forget that you ever had a rebel brother.
Will you?”

Rose's kisses were a sufficient answer. She was too
happy just then to remember aught save that he had always
been the dearest brother imaginable; besides that
Annie taught that we must forgive as we would be forgiven.
Annie bore no ill will toward the South. She
prayed for them as well as for the North, and cried most
as hard over the sick, suffering soldiers captured by our
army as over our own prisoners, and if she could forgive,
Rose surely ought to do so too.

“You have not seen Annie yet,” she said; “she ran
away the moment she knew you had come. I thought
she might be going to meet you, but it seems she did
not. You must love her a heap, and I know you will.
She's so beautiful in her mourning, and bears her trouble
so sweetly. I wish everybody was as good as Annie
Graham. She has never been heard to say one bitter

thing against the South. She only pities and prays,
and says they are misguided.”

“And pray, who is this paragon of excellence that I
must love a heap?” Jimmie asked, when Rose had exhausted
the list of Annie's virtues, and paused for a little
breath.

“Who was she? Hadn't he heard of Annie? Had
Will failed to tell him of her adopted sister?” Rose
asked in some astonishment.

Will had proved remiss in that one particular duty,
and never, until this moment, had Jimmie heard that
Rose had an adopted sister; and if Rose, why not himself?
Wasn't he Rose's brother?

“Certainly you are,” Rose replied; “but I'm not sure
Annie will let you call her sister, because you're,—you're,
—well, you see, Annie is real good, and, as I told
you, prays, just as hard for Southern soldiers as for ours,
that is, prays that they may be Christians, and that their
sick and wounded may be kindly cared for, but of course
she wants us to beat, and knows we shall, but I guess
she does not think of you just as she does of Tom,
though she never saw either. She would not go up to
the depot to meet you, and I wanted her to so much.
She said, too, it was not good taste, or something like
that, to hang out our banner on a Rebel's account, and
she acts so funny generally about your coming home
that I hope you'll do your best to be agreeable, and
make her like you. Will you Jimmie?” and Rose looked
up at her brother in such a comical, serious way, that he
laughed aloud, promising to do his best to remove all
prejudice from Miss Graham's mind, and asking who she
was and where she came from.”

“I'm sure I don't know where she came from,” Rose
replied, a little uncertain how to grapple with the Carleton

pride, which existed in Jimmie as well as the rest of
them. “She's a lady, as any one can see, and possessed of
as much refinement as we often find in Boston. She
can't help it, Jimmie, if she is poor. It don't hurt her
one bit, and I'm getting over those foolish notions
cherished by our set at home. Will says she came of a
good family and might have married a millionnaire, old
enough to be her father, but she wouldn't. She preferred
a mechanic, George Graham, the most splendid
looking man you ever saw. He's dead now, poor fellow.
Will took care of him, and brought him home; that's
why Annie lives with me.”

Rose's explanations were not the plainest that could
have been given, but Jimmie extracted from the medley
of facts a very prominent one. It was not a Miss but a
Mrs., to whom he was to be agreeable. It had not
seemed a very unpleasant duty to change a beautiful
young girl's opinion of himself, but a Mrs. was a very
different affair, and for the first time since his arrival his
old, merry, half-sarcastic laugh rang through the room,
as with a mocking whistle, he said,

“A widow, hey! How many children does she boast?”

“Not a single bit of a one,” Rose answered, feeling
that Jimmie had said something very bad of Annie.

He saw it in her countenance, and hastened to make
amends by asking numberless questions about Annie,
whose history from the time of Rose's first acquaintance
with her up to the present hour, he managed at last to
get, the result being that he was not as much interested
in the Widow Graham, as he mischievously called her,
as he might have been in Miss Annie. The easily disheartened
Rose gave him up as in corrigible, and mentally
hoping Tom would not prove as refractory as Jimmie
had done, she turned the conversation upon Will,

whose goodness she extolled until the supper bell rang
and Jimmie arose to leave her for a time, as she was not
prepared to go down that night and do the honors of
the table.

The gas was lighted in the dining-room, and the heavy
damask curtains were dropped before the long French
windows. A cheerful coal fire was blazing on the marble
hearth, while the table, with its snowy linen, its
china, silver and cut glass, presented a most inviting
appearance, making Jimmie feel more at home than he
had through all the long years of his voluntary exile
from the parental roof.

“This is nice,” he said, with a pleasant feeling of satisfaction
not unmingled with a certain degree of self-reproach,
which whispered that after what had passed he
was hardly worthy to be the recipient of so much luxury.

Thoughts like these were about shaping themselves
into words, when he caught sight of a figure he had not
before observed, and became aware that he was not alone
with his mother, as he at first supposed. It was a delicate
little figure, not as petite as his sister's but quite as
graceful, with its sloping shoulders and rounded waist,
almost too small to suit the theorems of a Water Cure,
but looking vastly well to Jimmie, whose first thought
was that he could span it with his hands. Around the
well shaped head the heavy bands of pale brown hair
were coiled, forming a large square knot which, falling
low upon the neck, gave to the figure a more girlish appearance
than Jimmie had expected to find in his sister's
protégée, the Widow Graham. He knew it was Annie, by
the mourning robe fitting so closely around the slender

throat, and for an instant he wished she were not there,
as he preferred being alone with his mother. But one
glance at the sweet face turned toward him as Mrs. Carleton
repeated his name, dispelled all such desires, and
with a strange sensation, which he attributed to pleasant
disappointment, he took the soft, white hand which
Annie extended toward him. It was a very small, a very
pretty hand, and trembled perceptibly as it lay in Jimmie's
broader, warmer one, while on the pale cheek there
was a deep, rich bloom, which Mrs. Carleton herself had
never observed before.

“I have heard of Mrs. Graham from my sister,” Jimmie
said, bowing to her with his usual gallantry, while
Annie tried to stammer out some reply, making a miserable
failure, and leaving on Jimmie's mind the impression
that she was prejudiced against him, and so would
not welcome him home.

A dozen times in the course of the supper Jimmie assured
himself that he did not care what was the opinion
held of him by such as Annie Graham, while he as often
changed his mind and knew that he did care, wondering
what it was about her face which puzzled him so much.
She looked a little like Tom's wife, Mary, he thought,
that is, as Mary had looked just before her departure for
Charleston, when she bade him good bye, whispering to
him timidly of a world where she hoped to meet again
the friends she loved so well. And as, whenever he
thought of Mary, he felt that her angel presence was
around him still, he now felt that another angel spirit
looked out at him from the soft eyes of blue raised to his
so seldom, and when raised withdrawn so quickly.
What did she think of him? He would have given
something to have known, but he was far from suspecting
the truth or guessing what Annie felt, as she saw

upon his face the lines of dissipation, and thought of the
debasing scenes through which he must have passed
since the days of auld lang syne, when, with the little
Pequot of New London, he sat upon the rocks and
watched the tide come in, telling her how, on the morrow
night, his own fanciful little boat, named for her,
should bear them across the placid waters of the bay to
where the green hill lay sleeping in the summer moonlight.
The Pequots reply had been that the morrow
was the Sabbath, and not even the pleasure of a sail with
him could tempt her to steal God's time, and appropriate
it to such a purpose. He had called her a little Puritan
then, asking where she learned so strict a creed,
and adding, “but I half believe you're right, and if I'd
known you sooner I should have been a better boy;”
then kissing her blushing cheek, he had led her from
the rocks over which the waves were breaking now, and
that was the last the Pequot ever saw of him. There
was no sail upon the bay, no more watching for the ebb
and flow of the evening tide, no walks on the long piazza,
or strolls upon the beach, nothing but news one night
that the handsome, saucy-eyed boy was gone to his home
in Boston, leaving no message or word of explanation
for her, the little Pequot, whose step was slower for a
few days, and whose headache was not feigned, as the
harsh aunt said it was, when she refused to join the revellers
in the parlor, and dance with the grey-haired man,
four times her age, who sought her for his partner.
They had not met since then till now, and Annie struggled
hard to keep back the tears as she remembered all
that had come to her since that summer at New London
—remembered the childish fancy which died out so fast,
and the later love which crowned her early girlhood,
finding its full fruition at the marriage altar, and twining
itself so closely around the fibres of her heart, that
when it was torn away, it left them sore and bleeding
with pain at every pore.

Surely, with this sad experience, Annie, young and
beautiful though she was, could feel for Jimmie Carleton
naught save the deference she would have felt for any
stranger who came to her as the brother of her patroness.
And still she was conscious of a deeper interest in
him than if he had been a perfect stranger, and his presence
awoke within her an uncomfortable feeling, making
her wish more and more that she was away where she
would not be obliged to come in daily contact with him.
Under these circumstances it is not strange the conversation
flagged, until for Rose's sake Annie felt compelled
to make an effort. Suddenly remembering Isaac Simms,
she asked if anything was ever heard at Washington of
the Richmond prisoners?

“Yes,” Jimmie replied; and eager to show his own
willingness to talk of the war and the Federal Army, he
told how only the day before he left for Rockland, news
had come from Tom, saying he was well as could be expected,
considering his fare, but the boy captured with
him would surely die if not soon restored to purer air
and better care than those tobacco prisons afforded.

“Oh,—it will kill Mrs. Simms if they should bring
him back to her dead,” and the hot tears gushed from
Annie's eyes as she heard in fancy the muffled drum
beating its funeral marches to the grave of another Rockland
volunteer.

The tears once started could not be repressed, and
Mrs. Carleton and Jimmie finished their supper alone,
for Annie excused herself, and hastening to her room,
poured out her grief in tears and prayers for the poor
sick boy, pining in his dreary prison home, while mingled

with her tears was a note of thanksgiving that to
her had been given the comfort of knowing that the death
pillow of her darling was smoothed with friendly hands,
and that no harsh, discordant sounds of prison riot or
discipline had disturbed his peaceful dying.

Meantime Jimmie had returned to his sister, whose
first question was for Annie. “What did he think of
her? Wasn't she sweet, and hadn't she the prettiest
blue eyes he ever saw?”

“I hardly saw them, for she is evidently coy of her
glances at a Rebel,” Jimmie answered, half playfully, half
bitterly, for Annie's manner of quiet reserve had piqued
him more than he cared to confess,

“She's bashful,” Rose replied; “and then, Jimmie,
you can't expect her to forgive you as readily as your
own sister, for you know she never saw you till to-night,
and she's a true patriot; but say, did you ever see so
sweet a face—one that made you think so much of an
angel?”

“Rather too pale to suit my taste. I like high color
better,” and Jimmie pinched Rose's glowing cheek until
she screamed for him to stop.

“It's all going wrong, I know,” Rose began, poutingly.
“You don't like Annie a bit, and she's so good, too.
You can't begin to guess how good. And there's nothing
blue about her, either. Why, she's a heap more cheerful
than I could be if Will were dead, as George is. I'd die
too,—I know I should; but Annie's a real Christian, and
that does make a difference. It seems to be all through
her, and she lives it every minute. I honestly believe
I'm better than before she came. She has actually persuaded
me not to get up big dinners on Sunday, as I
used to do, but to let all the servants go to church, and
every night she goes for half an hour into the kitchen,

and teaches old black Phillis how to read the Bible.
She's so truthful, too. Why, she said she presumed that
little Pequot girl would not have liked you any way after
she heard that Dick Lee was not your name.”

“The Pequot girl! How came Mrs. Graham to hear
of her?” Jimmie asked, his face flushing crimson.

“Oh, I happened to ask mother something about her
one day, right before Annie, and so, of course, explained
a little. It would not have been polite if I hadn't,”
Rose replied, adding, as she saw her brother's evident
chagrin, “you need not mind one bit, for Annie never
tells anything.”

It was not the fearing she would tell which affected
Jimmie unpleasantly; it was the feeling that he would
rather Annie Graham should not know of all his delinquencies,
and so despise him accordingly. How unfortunate
it was that she was there, and yet he would not
have sent her away if he could, though he did wish she
were not so well posted with regard to his affairs, both
past and present. What made Rose tell her of the
Pequot, and why had the Pequot haunted him ever since
he came into that house? Something had brought her
to his mind, and as the servant just then came in, bringing
her mistress's supper, he left his seat by Rose, and
walking to the window looked out upon the starry sky,
wondering within himself where she was now, the little
girl who had sat with him upon the rocks, and told him
it was wicked to break God's fourth command. The
scene which Annie saw at the supper table was present
with him now, remembered, for the first time, since the
battle at Bull Run. Then, as he lay waiting for the foe,
he had in fancy heard again a sweet, girlish voice, bidding
him keep holy the Sabbath day, and the tear which
dropped upon his gun was prompted by the thought of

all he had passed through since the happy school-boy
days when the Pequot preached to him her gentle
sermons.

In the hall there was a rapid footstep, and Rose called
out:

“Annie, Annie, come here. Why, where are you going
to-night?” she continued, in much surprise, as Annie
looked in, hooded and shawled as for some expedition.

“Going to see Mrs. Simms. It is not far, you know,”
was Annie's answer, and the door closed after her in
time to prevent her hearing Rose's reply.

“It's dark as pitch, and slippery too. Jimmie, do
please see her to the gate, but don't go in, for the widow
is awful against Rebels!”

The next moment Jimmie was half way down the
stairs, calling to Annie, who held the door-knob in her
hand.

“Mrs. Graham, allow me to be your escort,—Rose is
not willing you should go out alone.”

“Thank you, I am not at all afraid, and prefer going
alone, as Mrs. Simms might not care to meet a stranger,”
Annie replied, with an air of so much quiet dignity, that
Jimmie knew there was no alternative for him save to
return to his sister's chamber, which he did, feeling far
more crestfallen than he had supposed it possible for
him to feel, just because a widow had refused his escort.

It was wholly owing to the taint of Rebeldom clinging
to him, he knew, for he was not accustomed to having
his attentions thus slighted by the ladies to whom they
were offered, and all unconsciously the manner of reserve
which Annie assumed toward him was punishing him for
his sin quite as much as anything which had yet occurred,
making him feel keenly that by his traitorous act he

had, for a time at least, built a gulf between himself and
those whose good opinion was worth the having.

“Why haven't you gone?” Rose asked, as he came into
the room. “She wouldn't let you? I don't believe you
asked her just as you should. Dear, dear, it's all going
wrong between you two, and if Tom don't act any better
when he comes home, what shall I do?”

“Send Mrs. Graham away,” trembled on Jimmie's lips,
but knowing, from what he had seen, that so far as Rose
was concerned, Annie's tenure at the Mather mansion
was stronger than his own, he wisely kept silent, and
sitting down by the open grate, he went off into a fit of
abstraction, mingled with sad regrets for the past and
occasional thoughts of the little white-faced Annie, now
essaying to comfort the Widow Simms, who had extorted
from her the intelligence brought by Jimmie of her boy,
and who, with her hard hands covering her face, was
weeping bitterly, and sobbing amid her tears,

“My poor, poor boy! It's the same to me now as if
he was dead. I'll never see him any more. Oh, Isaac,
my darling!”