Graham and Jimmie Carleton to the Mather mansion, where everything had been made so beautiful for them. It was a pleasant coming home, and a most ample compensation for all the weariness and privation which Annie, as hospital nurse, had endured, and she felt that far more was awarded to her than she deserved. “Mr. Carleton was the one to be honored,” she said, and her soft, blue eyes rested upon the pale, tired man, who, exhausted with his journey and the excitement, lay down at once upon the sofa, while his mother and Rose knelt beside him and kissed, and pitied, and cried over his poor white face, and long, bony hands, which were almost transparent in their whiteness. Maude was not one of the party at the Mather mansion that night. “You ought to be alone the first night,” she said, when Rose insisted that she should join them. “To-morrow I will come round and call on Mrs. Graham and your brother.” She had been greatly interested in all the arrangements, and was curious to see the woman who had almost been her rival, while Annie was quite as curious to see her, the heroine of the mountains. In her letters to Annie, Rose had purposely refrained from mentioning Tom’s name with Maude’s, so that Annie was ignorant of the real state of things. But she did not remain so long. “Is she so very beautiful?” she said to Rose, when, after supper, they were all assembled in the parlor, and Maude was the subject of conversation. “Ask Tom; he can tell you,” Rose replied, and by the conscious look on Tom’s face, Annie guessed the truth at once. That night, when the two brothers were alone in their room, Tom said to Jimmie: “Well, my boy, I’ve kept my word,—I’ve waited a year and more. I’ve given you every chance a reasonable man could ask. Have you made a proper use of your privileges? Would it do me any good to try and win Annie now?” “You can try if you like,” Jimmie said, with a smile. And then Tom told him of his hopes concerning Maude De Vere, and Jimmie said to him saucily: “Don’t you remember I told you once you had had your day? But some lucky dogs have two, and you, it seems, are one of them.” CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE LOVERS.