What was going on in their homes? what were dear relatives and friends doing and enduring? were questions they were often asking of themselves or each other—­questions answered by a sigh only, or a shake of the head.  The suspense was hard to bear; but who of all Americans, at home or abroad, who loved their native land, were not suffering at this time from anxiety and suspense?

“A vessel came in last night, which I hope has a mail for us,” remarked Mr. Dinsmore as they sat down to the breakfast table one morning early in November.  “I have sent Uncle Joe to find out; and bring it, if there.”

“Ah, if it should bring the glorious news that this dreadful war is over, and all our dear ones safe!” sighed Rose.

“Ah, no hope of that,” returned her husband.  “I think all are well-nigh convinced now that it will last for years:  the enlistments now, you remember, are for three years or the war.”

Uncle Joe’s errand was not done very speedily, and on his return he found the family collected in the drawing-room.

“Good luck dis time, massa,” he said, addressing Mr. Dinsmore, as he handed him the mail bag, “lots ob papahs an’ lettahs.”

Eagerly the others gathered about the head of the household.  Rose and Elsie, pale and trembling with excitement and apprehension, Mr. Travilla, grave and quiet, yet inwardly impatient of a moment’s delay.

It was just the same with Mr. Dinsmore; in a trice he had unlocked the bag and emptied its contents—­magazines, papers, letters—­upon a table.

Rose’s eye fell upon a letter, deeply edged with black, which bore her name and address in May’s handwriting.  She snatched it up with a sharp cry, and sank, half-fainting, into a chair.

Her husband and Elsie were instantly at her side.  “Dear wife, my love, my darling! this is terrible; but the Lord will sustain you.”

“Mamma, dearest mamma; oh that I could comfort you!”

Mr. Travilla brought a glass of water.

“Thank you; I am better now; I can bear it,” she murmured faintly, laying her head on her husband’s shoulder.  “Open—­read—­tell me.”

Elsie, in compliance with the sign from her father, opened the envelope and handed him the letter.

Glancing over it, he read in low, moved tones.

“Rose, Rose, how shall I tell it?  Freddie is dead, and Ritchie sorely wounded—­both in that dreadful, dreadful battle of Ball’s Bluff; both shot while trying to swim the river.  Freddie killed instantly by a bullet in his brain, but Ritchie swam to shore, dragging Fred’s body with him; then fainted from fatigue, pain, and loss of blood.

“Mamma is heart-broken—­indeed we all are—­and papa seems to have suddenly grown many years older.  Oh, we don’t know how to bear it! and yet we are proud of our brave boys.  Edward went on at once, when the sad news reached us; brought Ritchie home to be nursed,