After this, Annie offered no further remonstrance, though in her heart she hoped Jimmie’s residence in Rockland would not be very long. Of Tom she had no dread. She rather wished to see him than otherwise, for he had been kind to George, and in fancy she had enshrined him as a middle-aged, greyish haired man, stooping a little, perhaps, and withal very fatherly and venerable in his appearance! This was _Tom_,—but _Jimmie_, handsome, saucy-eyed, mischievous Jimmie, putting angle worms in Rose’s bosom, and frightening the little Pequot with a mud-turtle, found on New London beach, was a very different thing, and though trusting much to the lapse of years and change of name, Annie shrank nervously from the dreaded to-morrow, which was to bring the Rebel home. 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.”