“I know why you are up so late, mother; and what you are here for. You are thinking of what Mrs. Carleton said, and wondering if it is true. I guess ’tis, mother, for I don’t get any stronger, and my cough hurts me so. But I’m not a bit afraid to die now, with you beside me up to the very last minute. In Richmond it was different: and I prayed so hard that God would let me come back, if only to drink from the well and then die on the grass beside it. He did let me come, and now we mustn’t say anything if He does not let me stay but a little bit of a while. I’ve been thinking it over since Mrs. Mather went away, and at first it seemed hard that Eli and John should both have such good luck, and only ‘Stub,’ be the one to suffer.” He said this last playfully, using his old nickname of “Stub,” because he saw by the dim light burning on the table the bitter look of anguish upon his mother’s face, and he would fain remove it. At the mention of the name which her more stalwart sons had given to her baby, the widow’s chin quivered, and her rough hand smoothed the thin light hair, but she did not speak, and Isaac went on: “Then, too, I want to live till the war is over. I want to hear the joyful shouts, and see the bonfires they will kindle in the streets. There’s a big box in the barn. I hid it there the morning I went away, and I said when the peace comes we can burn that box, and mother will look out from the window, and the church bells will ring, and there’ll be such rejoicings. Now I ’most know I shan’t be here to see it. But, mother, you’ll burn the box,—you and Susan, with Eli and John,—and you’ll think of me, who did what I could to bring the peace.” There was a choking sound like the swallowing of a great sob, and that was all the answer the widow made; only her hands moved faster through the threads of light brown hair, and her rigid form sat up straighter, more rigid than ever. She was suffering the fiercest pangs she would ever know, for she was giving Isaac up. She was coming to the knowledge that he was really going from her,—that Jimmie Carleton was right, and Isaac was not long for this world. When at last her mind reached that point, the tension of nerve gave way for a little, and her hot tears poured over the white face she kissed so tenderly. The moon was looking in at the low west window ere the widow went back to her own bed, and Isaac, nestling down among his pillows, fell away to sleep, dreaming of the bonfire in the street, when the hidden box was burned, and dreaming, too, of that other world which lies so near this that he could almost see the loving hands stretched out to welcome him.