Upon leaving Canada we had expected to lose Annie, our faithful nurse, but she interrupted our objections to taking her with:

"Howly Fathers! an' sure an' phwat's to become of me widout the baby an' leastwise, phwat's as bad an' worse, phwat's to become of the baby widout me?"

We explained that wages were much higher in the States and that we could not afford to take her. She begged to be allowed to come at any sacrifice of her own interests, so we finally consented, resolving that she should lose nothing by her loyalty.

Annie enjoyed the journey and the visit to New York, but at Norfolk the hundreds of negro stevedores who met the New York steamers frightened her nearly to death. The few colored people whom she had seen in Montreal and looked upon as martyrs and saints were of a very different class from these. When I tried to reassure her she said angrily:

"Oh, the mother of ye that ye are, sure—being afther planning to have one of these black, howling, writhing craythurs nursing of the boy, the dirty, twisting bastes! It's meself that's afther the temptin' of Providence to be a risking of me own grown-up life among such haythens, a singin' words widout any meanin', the saints save us!"

She was praying and counting her beads.

In my father's home there had been only colored servants, and my father and brothers, the most courtly of men, could not bear to see Annie standing in their presence while they remained seated. She was not only being spoiled by their numerous courtesies and gallantries, but was embarrassed by them, feeling herself a servant equally with the colored maids.

Our second child, little Corbell, was three years old when Annie left us to marry a well-to-do farmer, a young man who, in his rural simplicity, recognized no superior. I was sorry to part from her, particularly on account of Corbell's strong aversion to colored people. After innumerable failures to fill her place a kinswoman, noted for judgment and care in the selection of her servants, sent me her own nurse until I could secure one that would please me. The nurse remained three days, when Corbell took the situation into his own hands and thus explained it in his prayers:

"Our Father who art in Heaven, please send me a white nurse because nobody else can, and because when black hands touch me my soul crawls all around inside and I get icicles and creepy things all down my back, and, oh, dear Lord, our Father who art in Heaven, I'd rather have no supper than have their black hands cut it up for me, and I'd rather be dirty as the pigs than have them wash me, and I'd rather not go out doors and see the birds and flowers and other children and things play and pick the buttercups that the policeman don't care if we pick because they grow wild, than have their big black-white eyes watching me. So, our Father who art in Heaven, please send me a white nurse quick, for Christ's sake. Amen!"

"Don't you know, my darling," I said, "that all the Southern children have colored nurses. Your mamma had one and loved her almost like a mother. God made the colored people."

"Well, then, there must have been a colored God around somewhere."

He thought that the black God must be very wicked and prayed that the dusky deity might die "and let the white God make all the people."

At that time the only servants in Virginia were colored. Finding that the child could not become accustomed to "black hands" and that his health was endangered by his efforts to overcome a weakness that seemed congenital, we advertised for a white nurse but with no success. Hearing us talk about advertising, Corbell asked God to put in a "'tisement" for a white nurse for him. He prayed for everything he wanted and asked the Lord to do things for him that his father and mother could not do, at the same time begging the Father in Heaven not to let us know that he had appealed to a higher power, lest our feelings be hurt.

We were staying at the Ballard and Exchange Hotel in Richmond. One morning as we were going out for our daily ride a beautiful woman dressed in deep mourning was standing in the hall. With a startled expression she held out her hands and my little Corbell ran into her arms, exclaiming:

"Oh, you are the dear, good God's 'tisement and you have come to be my nurse and take my 'Carthy's place. See, our mother, see! Black hands won't ever, ever make creeps in me any more, now that our Father who art in Heaven has sent the 'tisement to me."

The stranger clasped the child to her heart, kissing his golden curls and sweet brown eyes while her tears fell.

"Pardon this uncontrolled emotion, madam," she said, "and excuse me, please, for taking such a liberty with your child. I have just passed through a great sorrow and am very nervous."

I led her to our rooms where she sat with my little darling in her arms, gazing into his face lovingly and moaning, "My little angel! Oh, my little angel!" He took out his tiny handkerchief and wiped her eyes and kissing her said:

"Don't cry, 'Tisement, don't cry. Come and ride with our mother and my little brother and me and you can hold me in your lap; come, 'Tisement, come."

She rode with us, sitting beside me, holding my little Corbell.

"Why do you call me 'Tisement?" she asked.

Corbell explained that, hearing us talking about advertising for a nurse and seeing how we had failed, he had sent an advertisement to God himself, asking for just the kind he wanted, "and," he added, "I knew you were God's 'tisement as soon as I saw you."

When we returned she told me her sad story, the tragic story of a beautiful, fair, proud woman with the one black drop in her veins. All her loved ones were gone, her beautiful boy the last to leave her, and she longed for little hands to soothe away her pain. She stayed with us and her new-found charge saw only the pure white face, the delicate soft hands that touched him lovingly, and knew nothing of the dark link that held her in bondage to the past.

She was a devoted nurse, helpful and diplomatic with both children, but it was on Corbell that she showered all her pent up love. He was very fond of music and was always ready to greet the dawn with a smile and a song. Early one morning when George first opened his eyes after a night in the better world of dreams, he heard Corbell's flute-like tones in the strains of "Where, oh, where are the Hebrew Children?" The necessity of taking up the tangled threads anew filled his little heart with dismay, and with a sense of having been wronged he called out:

"Our mother, please come and make Corbell stop singing 'Where are the Hebrew Children?' I don't know where the Hebrew Children are and I don't want to know."

Mary, the faithful answer to God's "'tisement," volunteered to find the Hebrew Children and amid her suggestions of possible places in which they might be concealed, peace was restored.

Corbell was one of the most gifted of children. Not only could he sing, but he was quite an artist with the scissors, and at a very early age could cut out the most astonishing representations of birds and animals. One day after an illness I thought he had been cutting long enough and suggested to him to put up the scissors lest he become nervous and tired. Click-click went the scissors. "Wait till I get the meat part of the mule's mane right," he said. Several times I made the same suggestion, receiving the same reply, and click-click-click went the scissors. Then forgetting myself I raised my voice and commandingly called, "Put those scissors down, sir, this minute!"

Bang went the scissors across the other side of the room and with eyes flashing with indignation he cried out:

"Madam! Do you think that Aunt Mary Christ would have spoken to her little boy Jesus like that?"

"No, my darling," I said, ashamed of myself, "and I will never, never again speak in that way to you." And I never did.

It was probably the first time that the Blessed Virgin had ever been spoken of as "Aunt Mary Christ," but the claim of relationship was not surprising, as put forth by a little Virginia boy, since in the Old Dominion elderly ladies or those who were regarded with special reverence were always addressed as "Aunt."

Our nearest neighbors in the hotel were Colonel and Mrs. Parsons. The Colonel had belonged to the Federal Army and after the war had brought his family to Richmond to live. His children had some toy soldiers with which they and my two little boys would fight great battles, the Confederates and Federals being permitted to win alternately.

Mr. Davis came in one day when the star of victory shone on the Southern side.

"Hurrah, boys," he said. "I am glad I came to-day. I like to see the Confederates win."

"Wait, wait," said my little George, "and we'll let you see the Federals win."

"Ah, my little man," replied Mr. Davis in his pathetic voice, "your father and I have seen the Federals win."

Corbell was always interested in his father's fighting in Mexico. Of course Mr. Davis far outranked my Soldier in that war, but when Corbell asked, "Were you in papa's Company, Mr. Davis, or was he in yours?" rather than hold any precedence over his father in the boy's thought, Mr. Davis replied:

"If I remember correctly, we were both in each other's Company, I think, my son."

"Our mama," said Corbell, after Mr. Davis had gone, "what has Mr. Davis got in his throat that makes his talk sound so music-y?"

The summers we passed at the Old Greenbrier White Sulphur and the Salt Sulphur Springs, the hotels in both places being kept by brothers who had served in my Soldier's Division.

One season we occupied a cottage with Mr. Peabody, the great philanthropist. It was his last visit to his native land, the summer before he died. He had gone to the Springs in the vain hope of restored health. Looking for my little Corbell one day I found him in the rooms of Mr. Peabody who, with weak and trembling hands, was signing some cheques. Corbell was sitting on his knee, watching his work.

"I know what makes your hand tremble," he was saying. "Our mother told me; she says it's because of all the good things it has done for God's people."

"Your little hand does not tremble. Aren't you glad?" asked Mr. Peabody.

"I'd rather have trembly hands if they would help me to do good to all the people like yours," replied Corbell.

In the last summer of General Lee's life he was at the "Old White" taking the waters. Corbell had been ordered to drink them, too, and emphatically objected.

"Don't drink that water, General Lee," he said. "It doesn't smell good."

"But you drink it," replied the General.

"I have to; they make me," responded Corbell sadly. "You are a man and they can't make you."

"But I like it," asserted the General.

Corbell regretfully confided to me afterward:

"They call him a great man, our mama, and, oh, he likes things that don't smell good."

It was the only cloud upon his confidence in General Lee.

Coming in one day the General found the children building block houses.

"Is this the house that Jack built?" he asked.

"No, sir," replied Corbell. "That's the house that George built and this is the house that Corbell built. Jack didn't build any houses down this way."

"Don't you know the story?" asked General Lee. "'This is the house that Jack built. This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.'"

"Yes, sir," returned Corbell, "but it makes me feel weazley to keep on saying the 'Jack built' part."

In passing out of the dining-room one evening General Lee stopped at our table by the door. We were cracking nuts, which reminded him of the story I had told about the young man who asked for "the nut-busters." He said to Corbell:

"Your little hands are not strong enough to use these 'nut-busters.' Let me crack your nuts for you."

"No, thank you, General," replied the child. "Our mama says that we may eat all we can crack and that the squirrels don't have anybody to crack their nuts; if they did they'd eat too many, too. 'Course she don't want to hurt our hands, but she is afraid if somebody cracks nuts for us we'll eat too many and be sick."

The General said if that was the case he would not offer to crack any more nuts for little children.

I have a tender memory of a call from General Lee once when my little Corbell was very ill at the Ballard and Exchange. One morning Uncle Wash, the old colored porter, tiptoed in with a card.

"It's Marse Genul Lee, Missus," he whispered. "He come ter ax atter de li'le man, en he say he moughty sorry to hyer boutn his being so bad off. He's ret out hyer at de do'."

I went to the door and held out my hand to General Lee.

"I have heard of the illness of my little friend and have come to see him."

My Soldier got up from the side of the bed and brought a chair.

"I have come to renew my acquaintance, George, with our little man here," he said, calling my Soldier by his name, which I had never before heard him do.

He was President at that time of Washington College, now the Washington-Lee University, at Lexington, and this was the last time he was ever in Richmond.

General Lee's fondness for children made him always a great favorite with them, and he and our little Corbell discussed the Old White, its nasty smelling sulphur-water, and the many friends they had made there. Holding up his little thin hand, Corbell said:

"See, General, how wobbly my hand is. It's a heap tremblier than Mr. Peabody's was. I can write my name now, but I can't write it to do good with and to give things, as Mr. Peabody did; I wish I could. My, wouldn't I make it fly?"

"Your dear little hand does more good than it could possibly do by writing your name on paper," replied General Lee. "It is a hand of love and that is better than anything else in the world. I saw Dr. Minnegerode and he told me how sick you had been and how patient and sweet you were and how hard you were trying to get well."

"Dr. Minnegerode wasn't a soldier like you and our papa, was he?" asked our little darling, shaking his head and changing the subject.

"Yes," replied General Lee, "but he did not fight with a sword. He is a preacher, a Bible teacher, and fights with the spirit."

"That's poetry, isn't it?" asked Corbell.

"Yes; that is poetry."

"General, Dr. Minnegerode always says his prayers with me and asks the Lord to bless me and make me well," said Corbell.

"May I say my prayers with you, too, my boy, and ask the Lord to make us both well and bless us?"

"Yes, General, but you are a soldier, not a preacher."

"No, I am neither now, my little man," replied the General; "just a poor, sick, helpless child like you, asking for health."

He knelt by the bedside and prayed the most beautiful prayer I ever heard.

It was the last time I saw General Lee.