It was the first interest she had evinced in the matter. And glad to talk with any one upon the subject which was beginning to occupy so much of his own thoughts, Mr. Mather drew her into his lap, and endeavored, as far as possible, to explain to her what it all was for. Much of what he said, however, was Greek to Rose, who only gained a vague idea that the North was contending for a bit of cloth, such as she had often seen floating over the dome of the old State House in Boston, and with the remark, that men’s lives were far more valuable than all the Stars and Stripes in the world, she fell away to sleep leaving her husband in the midst of an argument not quite clear to himself, for, like his wife, he could not then see _exactly what the war was for_. Still, inasmuch as there was war, he would not play the coward’s part, nor shrink from the post of duty if his country should need his services. But this Rose did not know, and secure in the belief that whatever might happen, Will would never go, she soon resumed her wonted cheerfulness, and if she said anything of the war, was sure to startle her hearers with some remark quite unworthy of a New England daughter. She did wish they would stop having so many meetings, she said, or if they must have them, she wished they’d get Brother Tom to come and set them right. He had lived in Charleston. He could tell them how kind the people were to Mary, his sick wife, and were it not that ’twas beneath him to lecture, she’d surely write for him to come. Rose Mather was growing unpopular by her foolish speeches, and when at last she was asked to join with other ladies of the town in making articles of clothing for the volunteers, she added the last drop to the brimming bucket, by tossing back her chestnut tresses, and “guessing she shouldn’t blister her hands over that coarse stuff. She couldn’t sew much any way, and as for making bandages and lint, the very idea was sickening. She’d give them fifty cents if they wanted, but she positively couldn’t do more than that, for she must have a new pair of lavender kids. She had worn the old ones three or four times, and Will preached economy every day.”