“Not when he died, but at first, when he lay there on the grass, moaning and looking at you so sorry and grieved like, don’t you remember?” “Yes!” Maude gasped; and Charlie went on: “You know that one of the ruffians fired at Captain Carleton and hit you, and then I could not help paying him back. He was taller than Arthur, who stood behind him, and knocked him down in time to take the ball himself. He knew you had a revolver, and he thought it was you, though an accident, of course, and it made him so sorry that you should be the one to kill him. But I told him different; when I whispered to him, you know. I said it was I, and his eyes put on such a happy look. I know he forgave me, for he said so; but my heart has ached ever since with thinking about it. I could not forget it; and I’ve asked God to forgive me so many times. I think he has; and that when I die, I shall go where Isaac Simms has gone. I like him, Maude, if he was a Yankee, and fought against us; and I like Mrs. Graham so much; and Mr. James Carleton, and the Mathers, and Mrs. Simms, some; but I can’t like that dreadful Bill Baker, with his slang words and vulgar ways; he makes me so sick, and I feel so ashamed that we should be beaten by such as he.” “You were not beaten by such as he! You are mistaken, Charlie! The Northern army was composed of many of the noblest men in the world. There are Bill Bakers everywhere, as many South as North. It is foolish to think otherwise.” Maude was growing hot and eloquent in her defense of the Northern army, but Charlie’s gentle, low-spoken reply, stopped her: “Perhaps it is. I got terribly perplexed thinking it all over, and how it has turned out. I think—yes, I know I am glad the negroes are free. _We_ never abused them. Uncle Paul never abused them. But there were those who did; and if slavery is a Divine institution, as we are taught to believe, it was a broken down and badly conducted institution, and not at all as God meant it to be managed.” Charlie paused a moment, and when he spoke again, it was of _Tom_, who had been so kind to him. “He is like a brother to me, Maude, and I am glad you are to be his wife. And Maude, don’t wait after I am dead, but marry Captain Carleton at once. You will be happier then.” With tears and kisses Maude bent over her brother, who after that confession seemed so much brighter and more cheerful, that hope sometimes whispered to Maude that he would live. Annie was almost constantly with him now. He felt better and stronger with her, he said, and death was not so terrible. So, just as she had soothed, and comforted, and nursed many a poor fellow from Andersonville, Annie comforted and nursed Charlie De Vere, until that dreadful Saturday when the telegraphic wires brought up from the South the appalling news that our President was dead,—murdered by the assassin’s hand.