is mother consented to the plan. Dinah
made no objection when the matter was laid before her, for like many
colored women of her age she had an intense love for children. This love
had grown stronger during the years there had been no children at the
farmhouse to lavish it upon, and the short visits that the grandchildren
made at the farm were red-letter days to Aunt Dinah.

Mrs. Sherwood found her cares much lessened with Dinah installed as nurse.
The care of children was always a wearisome burden to the rather indolent
mother, so the irksome duties were readily placed on the willing shoulders
of Dinah.

While Mrs. Sherwood awaited her husband's directions, her brother's wife
appeared one day, bearing the sad announcement that Charley had fallen in
the last battle; and though Mrs. Sherwood had been expecting this from the
first, her grief was more distressing to witness than that of the
afflicted, sad-faced wife.

But there had been no hope in Mrs. Sherwood's heart since her brother had
bidden them farewell, and marched away with his comrades; and her fears
being realized, she was more anxious than ever to leave the country that
might yet claim her husband also, and when word came from Halifax that a
furnished house awaited the family, Mrs. Sherwood easily persuaded her
bereaved sister in-law to accompany them thither.

A few weeks later, the family--consisting of Mrs. Sherwood and her
brother's childless widow; Gussie and Dexie, twin girls of sixteen; Louie,
aged thirteen, Georgie ten, Flossie three, and a year-old baby in the arms
of black Dinah--arrived in Halifax, where this story properly begins.

CHAPTER II.

The new home awaiting the family was situated in the south end of the city.
The house, which is still considered a desirable residence, was built in a
style very common in Halifax, for the accommodation of two tenants. The
owner, a Mr. Gurney, lived in one part of it; he was a native of England,
but at the solicitation of his brother, who was an officer in one of the
regiments, he had removed to Nova Scotia, and was doing a prosperous
business on Granville Street.

Mr. Gurney had a large family. Cora, the eldest, was just out of her teens;
then came Launcelot or Lancy, as he was usually called; then Elsie, and so
on, till you came to an infant in arms. As the cabs containing the Sherwood
family drove up to the house, the nursery windows in the second story of
the Gurney household were filled w