But it must be done, and summoning all her courage she bade Jake drive back to the Hollow, shivering as she saw the cheerful light shining from the window, and shrinking more and more from the task imposed upon her, when, as she drew nearer, she saw Annie’s bright, joyous face as she put together the garments for to-morrow, pausing occasionally to speak to Widow Simms, who sat before the blazing fire, dreaming visions of what might be could she but get a pass to Richmond! “Don’t you hear wheels?” the widow asked as the carriage stopped before the gate. Annie thought she did, and going to window she saw Rose as she came up she walk. “Why, it’s Mrs. Mather,” she cried. “What can have brought her back to-night?” and hastening to the door she led Rose in, asking why she was there. “Oh, Annie,” Rose replied, winding her arms around Annie’s neck, “I wish I did not have to tell, but I must, and I know it will kill you dead. I’m sure it would me, and I don’t see why you should be served so either. We shall not go to-morrow, for Will is going to bring him home. Don’t you know now? Can’t you guess?” and Rose thrust the dispatch into the hands of the bewildered Annie, who clutched it eagerly, and bending to the lamplight, read what Rose had read before her. It came to her like a thunderbolt, striking all the deeper because it found her so full of eager expectation; and the November wind, as it swept past the door, and down the lonely Hollow, took with it one wailing cry of anguish, and then all was still within the cottage, save the sobbing whispers of Widow Simms and Rose bending over the unconscious form which lay upon the bed, so white and still that a terrible fear entered the hearts of both lest the stricken Annie, too, were dead. CHAPTER XIII. THE DYING SOLDIER. Backward now we turn, and stand again in the chamber where we saw the glitter of the polished steel, and heard the bitter cry forced out by pain from lips unused to give such sign of weakness. They were white now as the wintry snow which covers the Northern hills, and the breath came feebly from between them, as the sick man whispered faintly: “I shall not be here if Annie comes, for when the drum beats on the morrow, calling my comrades to their daily drill, I shall be far away where sounds of battle were never heard but once. Oh the peace, the quiet, the rest, there is in Heaven. I hope you will one day come to share it with me; you who have been kinder than a brother,” and the long, white fingers grasped the hand which for so many days and weeks had soothed the aching head and cooled the fevered pillows with all a woman’s tenderness.