Rose was not well posted with regard to the object of that meeting. She knew that Sumter or Charleston had been fired upon, she hardly could tell which, for she was far too sleepy when Will read the news to comprehend clearly what it was all about, and she had skipped every word which Brother Tom had written about it in his last letter, the one in which he enclosed five hundred dollars for the silver tea-set she saw in Rochester, and wanted so badly. Rose was an accomplished musician, a tolerable proficient in both French and German, and had skimmed nearly all the higher branches, but like many fashionably educated young ladies, her knowledge of geography comprised a confused medley of cities, towns and villages, scattered promiscuously over the face of the earth, but _which_ was _where_ she could not pretend to tell; and were it not that Brother Tom had spent three winters in Charleston, leaving at last his fair-haired wife sleeping there beneath the Southern sky, she would scarcely have known whether the waters of the Atlantic or of Baffin’s Bay, washed the shore of the Palmetto State. And still Rose was not a fool in the ordinary acceptation of the term. She knew as much or more than half the petted belles of modern society, and could say smart foolish things with so pretty an air of childishness, that even those of her own sex who were at first most prejudiced against her, confessed that she was certainly very captivating, and possessed the art of making everybody like her, even if she hadn’t common sense! On this occasion she chatted on in her usual style, provoking from George Graham more than one good-humored smile at remarks which evinced so much ignorance of the matter then agitating the entire community. “Will wouldn’t go to the war, of course,” she said, ‘supposing there were one, which she greatly doubted. Northern men, particularly those of Rockland, were so hateful toward the South. She didn’t believe Boston people were that way at all. At least, Brother Tom was not, and he knew; he had lived in Charleston, and described them as very nice folks. Indeed, she knew they were, herself, for she always met them at Newport, and liked them so much. She didn’t credit one word of what the papers said. She presumed Mr. Anderson provoked them. Tom knew him personally. “You have another brother besides Tom—won’t _he_ join the army?” asked Mr. Wentworth, a smile curling the corners of his mouth.