The knots of crape were taken from the doors, and the blinds were opened at last, and the light of heaven let into the dreary house; but there came no change to poor little Rose, whose white face grew so thin that Tom, when in September he came home to see her, would scarcely have known the little sister, of whose beauty he had been so proud. As if the sight of him in his uniform had brought back the horror of the past, she uttered a piercing shriek, and hid her face for a moment in her pillows; then, with a sudden movement lifted her head, and shedding back her tangled curls from her pale forehead, she stretched her arms toward him and whispered: “Take me, Tom; hold me as you used to do; let me be a little girl again in the old home in Boston, for Will, you know, is dead.” And Tom took her in his strong, brotherly arms, and laid her head against his breast, and caressed and smoothed her tumbled hair, and petted and loved her just as he did when she was a little child, with no shadow around her like that which enfolded her now. And then he spoke of Will, and the dark eyes fastened eagerly upon his as he told her how the very night before the battle, Will knelt down with him and prayed that whether he lived or died, all might be well with him. “And Rose,” he continued, “he bade me tell you, in case he was killed, that all was well, and you must think of him as in Heaven, not far, as some suppose, but near to you,—with you,—he said, and you must meet him there. You must bear bravely what God chooses to send; not give up like this when there is so much to be done. Will my darling little sister heed what poor Will said? Will she try to rally and be a brave woman?” “Yes, Tom, I’ll try,” came gaspingly from the white lips, and Rose’s voice was broken with sobs, as the first tears she had shed since she heard the fatal news, ran in torrents down her face. Tom only staid a week, but he did them a world of good, and Annie felt she had never known one half how noble a man he was until she saw how tender he was with Rose, and how kind to his mother, whose heart was aching to its very core for her youngest son. He had been removed from Salisbury to Andersonville when they last heard from him, and was dead, perhaps, by this time. Poor Jimmie! The year he had asked Tom to wait would be up before very long, but Tom would still keep faith with him. Annie was sacred to Jimmie’s memory, and once, when talking with her of the captive, he alluded to what would probably be when Jimmie came home again. And Annie did not turn from him now, as she would once have done had such a thing been suggested. “God only knows how I might feel,” she said, and by the look in her blue eyes, and the tone of her voice, Tom knew there was no hope for _him_.