ve you for a whole day,
Dainty, and I shall be thinking of you all day," whispered the fond
lover, longing to take her in his arms and bid her an ardent farewell,
but deterred because his step-mother was lingering officiously close by.

They parted with a swift-stolen kiss when her head was turned, and
Dainty went reluctantly enough to her room, dreading the almost nightly
repeated experience with the grim ghost of Ellsworth.

She had grown to dread with a sickening terror the nights that were
stealing some of the rose-bloom from her cheeks and the brightness from
her violet eyes; but in her pride lest Love should deem her a coward,
she would not yield to the longing to ask him to let her go home to her
mother till the wedding day.

"It would be too great a triumph for my cruel rivals to have me go home
now, and they would try to turn my lover's heart against me. Besides,
now that he has written mamma to come, she will soon be with me, and
then I shall not fear anything," she thought, as she entered the room
reluctantly, hating the night and the company of the coarse Sheila
Kelly, but too unwilling to spend the night alone to dismiss her from
the room.

But to her surprise she was confronted by an aged negro woman with a
kindly black face that beamed benevolence on the startled girl.

"Hi, honey, yo' look 'sprised ter see me in yo' room. Aine Massa Love
tole you dat I gwine tek de place o' dat uppish Irish gal?" she
exclaimed, gently.

Dainty smiled and shook her head. The old woman continued:

"Den I must interduce myse'f to yo', honey. My name is Virginny, but yo'
kin call me Mammy, kase I been de black mammy o' two ginerations o'
Ellsworfs--from Massa Love's pappy down to Massa Love heself--an' maybe
I gwine lib to nuss his chillen, too. Hi, what yo' blushin' at? Won't
yo' be proud when yo' an' Massa Love git married an' settle down, wif de
little ones springing up around yo' like flowers, some wif sassy black
eyes like deir pappy, an' some wif blue-vi'let eyes like deir mammy. Oh,
I want to lib ter see dat day, an' ter rock dem in my ole arms, an'
snuggle deir shiny heads up agin my breast, an' sing to dem like I done
sing to deir pappy an' deir grandpappy," folding her arms on her breast
and crooning musically:

"Byo, baby boy, bye--
Byo, li'l boy!
Oh, run ter 'is mammy,
En she tek 'im 'er arms--
Mammy's li'l baby boy!

"Who all de time er frettin' in de middle er