Now, as ever, Annie was the first to speak of hope, and her words were fraught with comfort to all save Harry’s mother. She could not comfort her, for from reckless, misguided Harry’s grave, there came no ray of consolation, but to the others she spoke of One who would not desert the weary captives. Neither bolt nor bar could shut Him out. God was in Richmond as well as there at home, and none could tell what good might spring from this seeming great evil. For a long time they talked together, and the afternoon was half spent when at last they separated, Rose going back to her luxurious home where she wrote to her mother the sad news concerning Tom, blurring with great tears the line in which she spoke of Jimmie, wondering what his fate had been. Slowly, disconsolately poor Mrs. Baker returned to her day’s work so long neglected, but the suds she left so hot two hours before had grown cold, the fire burned out, and with that weary, discouraged feeling which poverty alone can prompt, she was setting herself to the task of bringing matters up again, when her employer, touched with the sight of the white, anguished face, kindly bade her leave the work until another day, and seek the quiet she so much needed. Poor old woman! How desolate it was going back to the squalid house where everything, even to the bootjack he had once hurled at her head, reminded her of the Harry who would come back no more! She did not think of his unkindness now. That was all forgotten, and motherlike, she remembered only the times when he was good and treated her like something half way human. He was her boy,—her first-born, and as she lay with her tear-stained face buried in the scanty pillows of her humble bed, she recalled to mind the time when first he lisped the sweet word mother, and twined his baby arms about her neck.