Restless and impatient to know just what his brother thought of his late treachery to the Federal Flag, Jimmie paced the parlors below until he could wait no longer and knowing by the sounds which came from the chamber above, that Tom was not trying to sleep, he finally ran up the stairs, and knocking at the chamber door, was soon closeted with Tom. It was an awkward business to speak of the past, but Jimmie plunged into it at once, stating some reasons which had led him to abjure his own government, expressing his contrition for having done so, and ending by saying he hoped Tom, if possible, would forget that he ever had a rebel brother. It had taken Tom a long time to recover from the shock of meeting his brother in the Virginia woods, and knowing he was a traitor to his country, but the same generous feeling which led him to refrain from any allusion to that meeting in the messages sent to his mother and sister from his Richmond prison, now prompted him to treat with kind forbearance the brother whom he had loved and grieved over since the days of his mischievous boyhood. “I should have found it very hard to forgive you if you had staid in the Southern army,” he said, “but as it is we will never mention the subject again.” Jimmie knew, by the warm pressure of Tom’s hand, that he was forgiven, and with a burden lifted from his mind he was about leaving the room, when Tom, with a preliminary cough, said: “By the way, Jimmie, who has Rose got here,—what visitor, I mean?” and Tom tried to look vastly indifferent as he buttoned his vest and hung across it the chain made from Mary’s hair. But the ruse did not succeed. Jimmie knew he had seen Annie, and with a sudden uprising of something undefined he answered in apparent surprise: “Visitor! what visitor! He must have come to-day, then. Where did you see him?” “I saw _her_ in here,” Tom replied, and Jimmie laughingly rejoined: “A pretty place for a _her_ in _your_ quarters! Pray, what was she like?” “Some like Mary, as she used to be when I first knew her,—a little body dressed in black.” “With large, handsome, blue eyes?” interrupted Jimmie, while Tom, without suspecting that his brother’s object was to ascertain how closely he had observed the figure in black, replied: “Yes, very handsome, dreamy eyes.” “And pale, brown _curls_?” was the teasing Jimmie’s next query, to which Tom quickly responded: “Curls, no. The hair was braided in wide plats and twisted around the head, falling low in the neck.” “Not a very white neck, was it?” Jimmie continued, with imperturbable gravity. “Indeed, it was,” Tom said, industriously scraping his thumb nail with his penknife. “White as snow, or looked so from the contrast with her dress. Who is she?” “One question more,—had she big feet or little, slippers or boots?” and this time Jimmie’s voice betrayed him. Tom knew he was being teased, and bursting into a laugh, he answered: