The mother's lips were moving in silent prayer, and her eyes were tightly closed to keep back the tears.
"Can you help me, dear?" she asked, piteously.
"Yes," was the quick response.
"You see," she went on, "I feel so helpless. I have never been to the White House or seen the President, and I don't know how to go about seeing him or how to ask him—and—I am afraid of Mr. Lincoln! I have heard so many harsh things said of him."
"I'll do my best, Mrs. Cameron. We must go at once to the White House and try to see him."
The mother lifted the girl's hand and stroked it gently.
"We will not tell Margaret. Poor child! she could not endure this. When we return, we may have better news. It can't be worse. I'll send her on an errand."
She took up the bouquet of gorgeous roses with a sigh, buried her face in the fresh perfume, as if to gain strength in their beauty and fragrance, and left the room.
In a few moments she had returned and was on her way with Elsie to the White House.
It was a beautiful spring morning, this eleventh day of April, 1865. The glorious sunshine, the shimmering green of the grass, the warm breezes, and the shouts of victory mocked the mother's anguish.
At the White House gates they passed the blue sentry pacing silently back and forth, who merely glanced at them with keen eyes and said nothing. In the steady beat of his feet the mother could hear the tramp of soldiers leading her boy to the place of death!
