CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH.
"Is't death to fall for Freedom's right?
He's dead alone who lacks her light." -- CAMPBELL.
Wee Elsie was convalescing rapidly, and the hearts so wrung with anguish at sight of her sufferings and the fear of losing her, relieved from that, were again filled with the intense anxiety for their country, which for a short space had been half forgotten in the severity of the trial apparently so close at hand.
Mails from America came irregularly; now and then letters and papers from Philadelphia, New York, and other parts of the North; very seldom anything from the South.
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.