Alas for Daph! She was soon to find life was not all sunshine in her northern home. The lovely May weather, which had been like a pleasant welcome to the strangers, suddenly vanished, and was succeeded by dark clouds, pouring rain, and keen easterly winds. Daph was glad to keep the children wrapped in the bed-clothes, while she racked her ingenuity to find means of amusing them. Charlie took a wash-basin for a drum, and the pewter spoon with which he beat it was a constant and patient sufferer. Louise was not so easily pleased; she began to miss her mother sorely, and tried poor Daph, by pleading piteously to see her “own dear mamma.” Daph had tried to banish from her mind all thoughts of her master and mistress, for the bare imagination of what they might have suffered made her wild with distress. She said to herself, “What for Daph go to tink about tings, jus as likely nebber was at all! Daph makes out de great Lord could n’t save massa and Miss Elize all hisself, widout Daph to help him! Foolish darky! She better cheer up, and take care ob de childen, ’stead o’ jus whimper, whimper, like a sick monkey.” Daph had to go through a course of consolation, similar to the above, very frequently, to enable her to maintain her cheerfulness; but the piteous questionings of the little Louise well-nigh overcame all the poor negro’s philosophy. “I’se tell you what it is, Miss Lou,” poor Daph said, desperately, at last, “I’se jus tell you what it is; de great Lord is a-takin care ob your mamma, and if you’s a good girl, you’ll jus see her some day, and if you is not, de great Lord will nebber, nebber bring you together!” Daph’s manner, as well as her words, had some effect upon Louise, and she tried to content herself with watching the rain streaming down the window-panes, and was soon in a sufficiently cheerful mood to march up and down the room, to the sound of Charlie’s music, greatly to his satisfaction. The dreary weather without was not all that Daph had to contend with; she found she had an enemy within the house, whose attacks it was far more difficult to meet. The little woman, whose angry voice had attracted Daph’s attention at first, kept her humble lodger familiar with its harsh tones. Daph’s appearance was the signal for a volley of complaints, as to the noise made by the children, the marks left on the floor by Daph’s feet, as she returned from the well, the unpleasantness of “seeing other folks so much at home in one’s own house,” etc., etc. Daph never had a chance to get any further than, “deed, Miss Ray!” in her attempts at self-justification, for the opening of her mouth was sure to produce another tirade on the “impudence of certain people, that nobody knew anything about.”