She found a care-worn man, deeply harassed, standing in the low-ceiled room, in which the Cabinet had met a few moments before.  A sweet, wan smile—­the instinctive, inborn sensitiveness of a noble nature-flickered over the rugged lines of the face as the usher, retiring, said: 

“Mr. President, this is Mrs. Sprague, whom you ordered to be admitted.”

“I am both glad and sorry to meet you, madam.  I knew your husband, the Senator, in other and happier times.  I wish that it were in my power to do for him or his what he was always doing for the unhappy or distressed.”

“Ah! how kind you are!  How—­”

She was going to say different from what she expected, but bethought herself of the ungraciousness of this form, since at that time Mr. Lincoln was the object of almost universal misreport and caricature.

“How can I say what a mother should say?”

While she spoke he began pacing the apartment, each time, as he came to the double window near which she sat, peering out with a yearning, far-away look toward the river and the red lines of the hills beyond it.  Then turning back, he strode the length of the long baize-covered table, sometimes absently picking up a document, until, facing her again as she narrated the story of Jack’s misfortunes, he would fling it hastily on the scattered heaps and fix his mild eye upon her.

“I know all this already, dear madam.  It has come to me from the boy’s friends, and”—­he hesitated a second—­“and from his—­or from those who are not his friends.”

“Not his friends?” the mother cried, half rising.  “Why, Mr. President, Jack hasn’t an enemy in the world!”

“You came through from Richmond last week?  Have you heard nothing from your son since you saw him?”

“Nothing.  Oh, is there anything about him?”

“You have not even read the newspapers, I see.”

“No, no; I have been so uncertain, so agitated, so constantly in attendance upon our members, that I have had no time to read or even talk.  But, pray tell me!  Your manner indicates that something has happened.  O Mr. President, think of my anxiety!  My only son!”

“Ah, Mrs. Sprague!  It is I that should be pitied here.  You came to me for comfort.  You came in reliance on my power to restore your son, and I—­I have the burden of telling you very grievous news.  No, no, your son is not dead, have no fear of that, if in the end it prove a comfort.  Last night your townsman, Elisha Boone, came to me with his heart-broken daughter, demanding vengeance for his son’s death, whom your boy had slain the very night you left him on the James.  He shot Captain Boone in the house you visited, and defeated a well-arranged plan to capture the rebel chief, Davis.  Not only this, but he endangered the escape of a number of sorely-worn prisoners who had succeeded in reaching the Rosedale place and halted only to make Davis’s capture certain.”