“I wonder he was ever suffered to come, he seems so young, so girl-like and so gentle. Still he does a great deal of good, Lieut. Graham tells me, by visiting the sick and sharing with them any delicacy he happens to have. He’s rather homesick, I imagine, for when I asked him if he had a mother, his chin quivered in a moment, and I saw the tears standing in his eyes. Poor boy, I can’t account for the interest I feel in him. Heaven grant that if we come to open fight he may not fall a victim.” “Yes, yes, my boy, my darling boy,” and burying her face in her hard hands, the widow sobbed aloud. “I thank you, Miss Mather, for reading me that,” she said, “and I thank your brother for writing it. Tell him so will you. Tell him I’m nothing but a cross, sour-grained, snappish old woman, but I have a mother’s heart, and I bless him for speaking so kindly of my boy.” Rose’s tears fell fast as she folded up the letter, and Annie’s kept company with them. There was a bond of sympathy now between the three, as they talked together of the soldiers, Mrs. Simms and Annie devising various methods by which they might be benefited, and Rose wishing she, too, could do something for them. “But I can’t,” she said, despairingly. “I never did anybody any real good in all my life,—only bothered them,” and Rose sighed as she thought how useless and aimless was her present mode of life. “You’ll learn by and by,” said the widow, in a tone unusually soft for her; then, as if the sock she held in her lap had suggested the idea, she continued, “Can you knit?” Rose shook her head. “Nor your mother, neither?” Again Rose shook her head, feeling quite ashamed that she should lack this accomplishment. “Well,” the widow went on, “’taint much use to learn now. ’Twould take a year to git one stocking done, but if when winter comes, that brother of yours wants socks and mittens, or the like of that, tell him I’ll knit ’em for him.” “Oh, you are so kind!” cried Rose, thinking to herself how she’d send Widow Simms some pineapple preserves, such as she had with dessert that day. They grew to liking each other very fast after this, and Rose staid until the little round table was arranged for tea and rolled to Annie’s bedside. There was no plate for Rose, the widow having deemed it preposterous that she should stay, but the table looked so cosy, with its tiny black teapot, and its nicely buttered toast, that Rose invited herself, with such a pretty, patronizing way, that the widow failed to see the condescension it implied. It did not, however, escape Annie’s observation, but she could not feel angry with the little lady, touching her bone-handled knife as if she were afraid of it, and looking round in quest of the napkin she failed to find, for Widow Simms had banished napkins from the table as superfluous articles, which answered no earthly purpose, save the putting an extra four cents into the pocket of the washerwoman, Harry Baker’s mother.