“She’d tell them what was what,” she said. “She’d let them know what an injured mother could do. She’d turn a second _Charlotte Corduroy_, if necessary, and free the land from such vile monsters,” and she actually sharpened up her shears as a weapon of offence in case the pilgrimage were made! This was the Widow Simms excited, but the Widow Simms when calm was a very different woman, praying then for her boy, and even asking forgiveness for the stirrers up of the rebellion. At Annie’s request she had at last come to live altogether at the cottage in the Hollow, and it was well for both that they should be together, for the widow’s stronger will upheld the weaker Annie who, in her turn, imparted much of her own trusting, childish faith to the less trusting widow. Greatly Annie mourned as the days went on, because no line came to her from George himself, nothing in his own handwriting, when he knew how she desired it, if it were but just his name. What made him always deputize Mr. Mather to write his letters for him? Annie put this question once to _Rose_, but the twilight was gathering over them, and so she failed to see the heightened color on Rose’s cheek and the moisture in her eye. Rose did not now, as formerly, bring her William’s letters, and read to her every word he said of George. She only told her how cheerfully George bore his illness, and how Will read to him every day from Annie’s Bible, choosing always the passages she had marked, but the rest was all withheld and Annie never dreamed the reason, or of the effort it cost the talkative little Rose to keep back what William said she must until the worst were known. Thus the August days glided by, one by one, until the summer light faded from the Rockland hills, and September threw over them her rich autumnal bloom, and then one day there came a note for Annie, written as of old by William Mather, but signed by George himself. Poor Annie, how she cried over and kissed that signature, to which George had added, “God bless you, darling Annie.” Every letter was unnaturally distorted, and few could have deciphered the words; but to the eye of love they were plain as noonday, and Annie’s kisses dropped upon them until they were still more blurred than when they came to her. It was very hard for Rose to keep from telling the dreadful story of what had followed the penning of those brief words, “God bless you, darling Annie.” But Will had said she must not, so she made no sign, only her arms clung closer around Annie’s neck, and her lips lingered longer upon the snowy forehead as she said good-night, and went away with the secret which Annie must not know then. CHAPTER XI. THE WOUNDED SOLDIER.