With close attention she read too of the great meetings that were being held all over the North, and the money that was being donated by rich and poor alike in aid of the free-soil settlers in Kansas. Recently she had had a long letter from Julia Hammerton, Horace’s sister, giving intimate account of the perilous times through which they were passing and of the riot and pillage and bloodshed which ravished the border. Her anxiety for her friend doubled the interest with which she perused the reports from Lawrence and Topeka. She exclaimed with horror every now and then, and at last with head bowed upon her clasped hands she whispered: “Oh, God in heaven, grant the election of Frémont, and stop all this, I pray, I pray!” [Illustration: “Inside were a withered rose and a letter.”] She sat musing for a while upon what she had read, but her thoughts would wander to the grapevine arbor, and again and again across the ardent longings for the success of the Republican cause which filled her mind would come the image of Jefferson Delavan as he held her hand to his heart and declared, “I shall win you yet, Rhoda Ware!” A deep flush dyed her cheeks and muttering, “Dear God, forgive me, that I cannot help thinking of him even at such a time!” she rose and folded the papers. Then she carefully put them away in her father’s office; for Charlotte did not hesitate, if she came across such publications in any other part of the house and happened to be in an audacious mood, to put them with laughing defiance into the fire. In her room she moved about restlessly, going now and again toward her bureau, then turning away. At last she opened one of the drawers and from one corner hidden away under ribbons and handkerchiefs, took a small box tied with a white ribbon. For some moments she clasped it tenderly in both hands, her eyes fixed on the floor. Then, as she sank into a chair, the barriers of her will gave way and with trembling fingers she took off the cover. Inside were a withered rose and a letter. She kissed the rose and caressed it in her palm and held it against her cheek--had not he held it to his lips that day in the arbor when she told him she would not marry him? Then she unfolded the letter and read again its brief sentences. Already she knew them, every word, for in the two days since she received it her traitor heart had sent her, against her will, to read it many times. It was dated in Cincinnati, where, he said, he was likely to remain several days more, but before returning home he intended to go on up the river to Hillside, where he hoped to have the pleasure of calling again upon Mrs. Ware and herself. It was written in courteous, formal phrase, and Rhoda’s eyes studied the lines as though searching for some hidden expression of the love that she knew was behind them.