“Yes, mother, in just a minute,” she called back. Jeff’s letters were quickly laid away in their box. Then she gathered up the sheets of her own letter and hurriedly folded them into the envelope, which she addressed and sealed. For after dinner she was going to a meeting of the anti-slavery sewing circle. The discarded sheets she twisted together and tossed into the fire. CHAPTER XV At the dinner table Mrs. Ware’s eyes rested with loving anxiety upon her first-born. “She is surely growing thinner and paler,” was her motherly thought. “Poor child! If she would only give up to her love how much happier she would be! It’s just eating out her heart, I know it is! If Jeff would take hold of her as Amos did of me--” and she glanced across the table at her husband, who in the grave responsibility of his middle age seemed far enough removed from the impetuous and masterful lover of her girlhood. Quickly trailing upon the thought came recollection of that ride of which she had told Rhoda and Jeff, and then a wave of memories of his ardent courtship swept over and softened her heart. The coldness and resentment of the last few months were buried, for the moment, underneath their warmth and color, and her eyes sought his face again with more of fondness in their expression than he had seen there in many a day. Then her mind went back to her daughter. “But I reckon that wouldn’t answer with Rhoda, after all,” she told herself. “She’s so different. But I really believe she’s beginning to feel more like giving up. The way she looked when she read his last letter to me and when we talked about him yesterday--yes, she’s surely finding out how much she really cares. If Jeff were to come up again now, perhaps--I’ll write to him and tell him to come!” The persuasion that perhaps the matter would come out all right added to the good feeling toward her husband already induced by her memories, and when they rose from the table she moved to his side and looked up into his face with a little glow of tenderness and affection in her own. With quick response he rested a hand upon her shoulder. “Which way are you going this afternoon, Amos?” she asked. “First to the Winslows, after I keep my office hour. Harriet is sick.” “Oh, poor little thing! I’ll go over with you. I must write a letter now, but if you’ll call me when you’re ready to go I’ll come down at once and we can drive past the post-office.” It was the first time in many weeks that she had wished to drive with him and he stooped and kissed her, saying, “I’ll be glad to have you, Emily.” With her letter in her pocket Rhoda hurried away, past the post-office, to the meeting of the sewing circle, at Mrs. Hardaker’s home. The members had planned to put in a particularly busy afternoon, for the coming of spring would be sure to bring with it an increase in the number of refugees and they must have ready plenty of clothing suitable for warm weather.