Rose sighed involuntarily, for on the subject of _that other brother_ she was a little sore, and the mention of him always gave her pain. He was not like Brother Tom, the eldest, the pride of the Carleton family. He was _Jimmie_, handsome, rollicking, mischievous Jimmie, to those who loved him best, while to the Boston people, who knew him best, he was “that young scapegrace, Jim Carleton, destined for the gallows, or some other ignominious end,” a prediction which seemed likely to be verified at the time when he nearly broke a comrade’s head for calling him a liar, and so was expelled from college, covered with disgrace. Something of this was known to Mr. Wentworth, and he asked the question he did, just to see what Rose would say. But if he thought she would attempt to conceal anything pertaining to herself, or any one else, for that matter, he was mistaken. Rose was too truthful for anything like duplicity, and she frankly answered: “We don’t know where Jimmie is. They turned him out of college, and then he ran away. It’s more than a year since we heard from him. He was in Southern Virginia, then. Mother thinks he’s dead, or he would surely write to some of us,” and a tear glittered in Rose’s eyes, as she thought of recreant Jimmie, sleeping elsewhere than in the family vault at beautiful Mt. Auburn. Rose could not, however, be unhappy long over what was a mere speculation, and after a few moments she resumed the subject of her husband’s volunteering. “She knew he wouldn’t, even if he did vote for Lincoln. She was not one bit concerned, for no man who loved his wife as he ought, would want to go and leave her,” and the little lady stroked her luxuriant curls coquettishly, spreading out still wider her silken robe, which now completely covered the plain shilling calico of poor Annie, whose heart for a moment beat almost to bursting as she asked herself if it were true, that no man who loved his wife as he ought, would want to go and leave her. In a moment, however, she repelled the assertion as false, for George had given too many proofs of his devotion for her to doubt him now, even though he had expressed a desire to join the army. Then she wished she was at home, where she could not hear what Rose Mather said, and she was about proposing to George that they should leave, when Mr. Mather himself appeared, and she concluded to remain. He was a haughty-looking man, very fond of his little wife, on whose shoulder he laid his hand caressingly, as he asked “what she thought of war now?” “I just think it is horrid!” and Rose’s fat hand stole up to meet her husband’s; “Mr. Wentworth tried to make me think you had volunteered, but I knew better. The idea of your going off with such frights! Why, Will, you can’t begin to guess what a queer-looking set they are. There was our milkman, and the boy who sawed our wood, and canal-drivers, and peddlers, and mechanics, and”——