'Twas nobly done to go and brave sickness and danger in search of your brother.

Had others been as faithful, he might be here now.

Never mind, my Harry; our hero will come back to us,--I know he is not dead.

One so good, and so brave, and so gentle, and so clever as he was, I know is not lost to us altogether." (Perhaps Harry thought within himself that his mother had not always been accustomed so to speak of her eldest son.) "Dry up thy tears, my dear! He will come back to us, I know he will come." And when Harry pressed her to give a reason for her belief, she said she had seen her father two nights running in a dream, and he had told her that her boy was a prisoner among the Indians.
Madam Esmond's grief had not prostrated her as Harry's had when first it fell upon him; it had rather stirred and animated her: her eyes were eager, her countenance angry and revengeful.

The lad wondered almost at the condition in which he found his mother.
But when he besought her to go downstairs, and give a hand of welcome to George Washington, who had accompanied him, the lady's excitement painfully increased.