“Jimmie expresses the utmost sympathy for Tom, and says he would gladly take his place, if that could be, for he fears the inmates of those Richmond tobacco houses are not always cared for, as he has been at Washington. Poor Tom, I hope he will be among the list of the exchanged, and if so, you may expect soon to welcome both your brothers.” No wonder Rose wept tears of joy over his letter, while her thoughts went after her rebellious, but repentant brother, nor tarried there, for, farther to the South, another weary captive pined, and every fibre of her heart bleed with sympathy for Tom—poor Tom, she always called him—and as the days of sickening suspense went by she grew so nervous and so ill that her mother came up from Boston to attend her, while Annie shook off her own feelings of weary languor, and did for Rose the same offices which Rose had once done for her. “I do so wish you had been my sister,” Rose said to her one day, when she had been kinder than usual “I know I should be a better woman, and so would all of us.” Annie made no reply, except to twine around her fingers the coils of chestnut hair, lying in such profusion upon the pillows. For a few moments Rose lay perfectly still, with her eyes fixed upon the paper bordering, as if counting the fanciful flowers, but her thoughts were intent upon a far different subject. Turning to her mother, she suddenly asked: “How _old_ is Jimmie, twenty-three, or twenty-four?” “Twenty-three last May,” was the reply, and, with rather a troubled expression upon her face, Rose continued, “_Will_ is _thirteen_ years older than I am,” and the little curly head shook doubtfully. “What are you talking about?” Mrs. Carleton asked, but Rose did not answer at once. There was another interval of silence, and then starting quickly, Rose called out, “Mother, don’t you remember that affair of Jimmie’s ever so long ago, when he was a boy at school in New London? There was a little girl that he fancied, and you took him home for fear of what would come of it; when you found she was poor and nobody?” Glancing quickly at Annie, who was attentively examining the hem-stitch of the fine linen pillow-case, Mrs. Carleton said, reprovingly: “You should not parade our family matters before strangers, my daughter.” “Oh, Annie is no stranger,” Rose answered, laughingly. “She’s one of our folks now, besides, she is not enough interested in the love affair of a seventeen years old boy ever to repeat it.” “Love affair!” Mrs. Carleton rejoined, a little scornfully. “Not very much love about it, I imagine. She was stopping with her aunt at the Pequot House, and Jimmie saw her a few times, passing himself off by another name than his own. If he had cared for this child he would never have done that.”