as to why you should have made your way there.
The girls guess that you have gone there to deliver in person some
message from one of your late fellow-prisoners to his family. I am not
good at guessing, and am content to wait until you return home. We hope
that you will leave as soon as you get the remittance. We shall count
the hours until we see you. Of course we learned from a Yankee paper
smuggled through the lines that you had escaped from prison, and have
been terribly anxious about you ever since. We are longing to hear your
adventures."

A few hours after the receipt of this letter, Vincent was on his way
home. It was a long journey. The distance was considerable, and the
train service greatly disordered and unpunctual. When within a few hours
of Richmond he telegraphed, giving the approximate time at which he
might be expected to arrive. The train, however, did not reach Richmond
until some hours later. The carriage was waiting at the station, and the
negro coachman shouted with pleasure at the sight of his young master.

"Missis and the young ladies come, sah; but de station master he say de
train no arrive for a long time, so dey wait for you at de town house,
sah."

Dan jumped up beside the coachman and Vincent leaped into the carriage,
and in a few minutes later he was locked in the arms of his mother and
sisters.

"You grow bigger and bigger, Vincent," his mother said after the first
greeting was over. "I thought you must have done when you went away
last, but you are two or three inches taller and ever so much wider."

"I think I have nearly done now, mother--anyhow as to height. I am six
feet one."

"You are a dreadful trouble to us, Vincent," Annie said. "We have awful
anxiety whenever we hear of a battle being fought, and it was almost a
relief to us when we heard that you were in a Yankee prison. We thought
at least you were out of danger for some time; but since the news came
of your escape it has been worse than ever, and as week passed after
week without hearing anything of you we began to fear that something
terrible had happened to you."

"Nothing terrible has happened at all, Annie. The only mishap I had was
getting a pistol bullet in my shoulder which laid me up for about six
weeks. There was nothing very dreadful about it," he continued, as
exclamations of alarm and pity broke from mother and sister. "I was well
looked after and nursed. And now I will tell you my most important piece