Annie shook her head, but made no answer. There was no bitterness now in her heart against Rose Mather. She had prayed that all away, and only hoped the anguish which had come to her, making her brain giddy, and her heart faint, might never be borne by another, if that could be. George had volunteered—was to be second lieutenant, and Annie, oh, who shall tell of the gloom which had fallen so darkly around the cottage she had called hers for one brief year. It was a neat, cozy dwelling, and to Annie it never seemed so cheerful as on that memorable night of the war meeting, when she had lighted the lamp, and sat down with George upon the chintz-covered lounge he had helped her make when first she was a bride. It is true the carpet was not of velvet, like that Rose Mather trod upon; neither was there in all the house one inch of rosewood or of marble, but there was domestic love, pure and deep as any Rose ever experienced, and there was something better far than that, a patient, trusting faith in One who can shed light upon the dreariest home, and make the heaviest trial seem like nought. It was this trusting faith which made Annie Graham the sweet, gentle being she was, shedding its influence over her whole life, and softening down a disposition which otherwise might have been haughty and resentful. Annie was naturally high-spirited and proud, and Rose’s remarks concerning volunteers in general, and George in particular, had stung her to the quick, but with the indignant mood there came another impulse, and ere the cottage had been reached, the bitter feeling had gone, leaving nothing but sorrow that it had ever been there. Like Rose, she wished there would be no war, but wishing was of no avail, and long after George Graham was asleep and dreaming, it may be, of glories won on battle-fields, Annie lay awake, questioning within herself, whether she ought, by word or deed, to prevent her husband’s going, if he felt as he seemed to feel, that it was as much his duty as that of others to join in his country’s defence. Annie was no great reasoner, logically; all her decisions were made to turn upon the simple question of right and wrong, and on this occasion she found it hard to tell, so evenly the balance seemed adjusted. More than once she stole from her pillow, and going out into the fresh night air, knelt in the moonlight, and asked for guidance to choose the right, even though that right should take her husband from her. “If I knew he would not die, it would not be so hard to give him up,” she murmured, as sickening visions of fields strewn with the dead, and hospitals filled with the dying, came over her, and for an instant her brain reeled with the thought of George dying thus, and leaving her no hope of meeting him again, for George’s faith was not like hers.