Six years have passed, and beneath the old maples sits Nurse Nannie, wrinkled and bent, with a wee babe upon her lap, while a girl of two years and a half plays with her doll upon the lawn, now and then looking up to catch mamma's smile, or to wonder why dear papa looks so grave when Grandmamma Dunmore tells him about the sick man in the cottage at the end of the lane, and his motherless children. And now she spies cousin Henry and Carrie coming from the avenue in the road, and springs to meet little Harry, who takes her hand and marches off with her, saying, he "isn't afwaid of tows," and brandishing a wisp of a stick as if there were a mighty power in it. Sally brings more chairs out upon the green, and the mammas and papas talk busily together, while the little ones run about enjoying their own infantile prattle; and just as Harry and Jennie are the happiest, with their pinafores full of buttercups and daisies, and their little faces flushed with exercise and joy, nurse comes to take them to the house, for the dew begins to fall. Then Mamma Colbert proposes that all go to spend the evening with Fred Burling and Rosalie, who occupy Grandmamma Dunmore's summer home.

Thus the days pass until the summer is gone, and the snow comes and drives them all to the city.

Mamma spends only a month away, for papa can not leave his parish, and she takes them to see Grandpa and Grandma Halberg, and Aunts Ellen and Mary, who pets them very much; then they go to the great house in the avenue, and every thing is so new and beautiful, that the time goes very pleasantly; only sometimes as they drive through Broadway, and stop near the crossings, a little ugly-looking creature, with a broom, gets upon the steps of the carriage and asks for pennies, and when Jennie shakes her tiny hand at her, and says "go 'way, bad girl," mamma speaks kindly to her, and puts a great silver bit into the poor girl's hand, and when she has gone, tells Jennie that she must pity and be good to the little street-sweepers, for dear mamma was like that poor girl once. Then Jennie puts up her wee mouth, and says, "No, no, mamma," while she makes an ugly face at the vision of the child with the broom, and revolves in her bewildered mind what dear mamma can mean!