Upon the dresser was a little vase containing some shrivelled flowers.

The water in the vase had dried up days ago, and the flowers had dried up with it.
In this room and in all the others everything was arranged with order and method, as if one were going away for a long time.

Dick drew a chair near the window, that he had opened slightly, and sat down.

Much of his fear for his mother disappeared.

It was obvious that she and her faithful attendant, Juliana, had gone, probably to be out of the track of the armies or to escape plundering bands like Skelly's.
He wondered where she had gone, whether northward or southward.