But Gussie did not care to discuss the matter further, as it required some time to think the matter out seriously, if she would discover why an officer should be less open to objection than a common soldier, for it was true enough that many who wore the stripes had stepped up from the ranks; yet how few of the better class care to make friends with the common soldier, be he ever so respectable as a private individual.  Was it likely that a cloak of uncommon respectability was put on with the officer’s uniform?  Hardly; else some of them lost the cloak very shortly after it was put on.

CHAPTER V.

Mr. Sherwood, accompanied by Mr. Plaisted, made a trip to Prince Edward Island before the winter set in, and though they did not make a very extensive purchase, they travelled through the country and learned its resources, visiting many farms where salable horses could be secured in the spring.  They took the horses they purchased direct to New York, where they were disposed of to good advantage, after which Mr. Sherwood returned to Halifax and settled down for the winter.

Mr. Plaisted remained in New York, but promised to be in Halifax early in the spring, and be ready for the first boat that crossed to the Island.

The first winter in Halifax passed very pleasantly to the Sherwoods.  The winter sports were new, and keenly enjoyed, and the “Sherwood twins” soon became as good skaters as those who had practised the art for years.  Yet no one must imagine that everything ran as smoothly as clockwork in the Sherwood household, for there are few families who can boast of such perfect regulations that there is never a jar.

Mrs. Sherwood had been only too willing to throw off all responsibility and place her duties on Aunt Jennie’s shoulders, but there were many things that must of necessity be left to Mrs. Sherwood herself, and when such things were put off indefinitely they were apt to prove annoying; consequently, when “patience ceased to be a virtue,” the domestic atmosphere was sometimes cleared by a small-sized storm.

There are also times when domestic helps are apt to be exasperating in the extreme, and a word of rebuke or remonstrance is like a match to a can of gunpowder; the powder is apt to go off, and the girl just as likely, and both leave an unpleasantness behind them.  Queer, too, that both are apt to go off at the most unexpected and inconvenient moment; but so it is.

The Sherwood family were not exempt from this experience, for Biddy raised a storm because Dinah seemed to be made more of than she was herself.  No explanations or smooth words would bridge over the difficulty.  She refused to stay in a house where “a big nager could stay in the room wid the missus and hould the baby as long as she plased;” so she left the house, and quite suddenly, too.

This disarranged household matters somewhat for awhile, as it was some time before a capable servant could be found, and Mrs. Sherwood was obliged to exert herself a little and attend to the wants of the baby, while Dinah filled the vacant place in the kitchen.