So they made him as comfortable as possible at the hotel, and Rose and Annie came every day to see him and he learned to watch and listen for their coming, especially that of Annie, to whom he took the kindliest. She knew just how to nurse him, and as she once cared for the poor prisoners, so she now cared for the Southern boy, who, while acknowledging the kindness of the Northern people, was still as thorough a Secessionist as he had ever been. Anxiously he waited for daily news of the progress of Grant’s army, refusing to believe that Lee was so closely shut up in Richmond that escape was impossible. Blindly, like many of his older brethren, he clung to the hope, that underlying the whole was some hidden motive which would in time appear and work good to his cause. Maude never opposed or disputed with him now, but read him every little item of good for the South. But when, in the spring, the fighting at Petersburg commenced, there were no such items to read, and Charlie asked no longer for news. Then there came a never-to-be-forgotten day, when through the length and breadth of the land, the glad tidings ran that Richmond had fallen; that Lee with his army was flying from the city, with Grant in hot pursuit. The war was virtually over; and from Maine to Oregon the air was filled with the jubilant notes of victory. For three long hours the bells of Rockland rang out their merry peals, and at night they kindled bonfires in the streets; and on the grass-plat by the well in Widow Simms’ yard, they burned the box, which, four years before, poor Isaac had put away for just such an occasion as this.