Surely, with this sad experience, Annie, young and beautiful though she was, could feel for Jimmie Carleton naught save the deference she would have felt for any stranger who came to her as the brother of her patroness. And still she was conscious of a deeper interest in him than if he had been a perfect stranger, and his presence awoke within her an uncomfortable feeling, making her wish more and more that she was away where she would not be obliged to come in daily contact with him. Under these circumstances it is not strange the conversation flagged, until for Rose’s sake Annie felt compelled to make an effort. Suddenly remembering Isaac Simms, she asked if anything was ever heard at Washington of the Richmond prisoners? “Yes,” Jimmie replied; and eager to show his own willingness to talk of the war and the Federal Army, he told how only the day before he left for Rockland, news had come from Tom, saying he was well as could be expected, considering his fare, but the boy captured with him would surely die if not soon restored to purer air and better care than those tobacco prisons afforded. “Oh,—it will kill Mrs. Simms if they should bring him back to her dead,” and the hot tears gushed from Annie’s eyes as she heard in fancy the muffled drum beating its funeral marches to the grave of another Rockland volunteer. The tears once started could not be repressed, and Mrs. Carleton and Jimmie finished their supper alone, for Annie excused herself, and hastening to her room, poured out her grief in tears and prayers for the poor sick boy, pining in his dreary prison home, while mingled with her tears was a note of thanksgiving that to her had been given the comfort of knowing that the death pillow of her darling was smoothed with friendly hands, and that no harsh, discordant sounds of prison riot or discipline had disturbed his peaceful dying. Meantime Jimmie had returned to his sister, whose first question was for Annie. “What did he think of her? Wasn’t she sweet, and hadn’t she the prettiest blue eyes he ever saw?” “I hardly saw them, for she is evidently coy of her glances at a _Rebel_,” Jimmie answered, half playfully, half bitterly, for Annie’s manner of quiet reserve had piqued him more than he cared to confess. “She’s bashful,” Rose replied; “and then, Jimmie, you can’t expect her to forgive you as readily as your own sister, for you know she never saw you till to-night, and she’s a true patriot; but say, did you ever see so sweet a face—one that made you think so much of an angel?” “Rather too pale to suit my taste. I like high color better,” and Jimmie pinched Rose’s glowing cheek until she screamed for him to stop.