However, Mrs. Sankey made no effort, nor did her husband ever hint
that it would be better for herself as well as her family if she
did so. He accepted the situation as inevitable, and patiently,
and indeed willingly, bore her burden as well as his own.

Fortunately she had in the children's nurse an active and trustworthy
woman. Abijah Wolf was a Yorkshire woman. She had in her youth
been engaged to a lad in her native village. In a moment of drunken
folly, a short time before the day fixed for their wedding, he
had been persuaded to enlist. Abijah had waited patiently for him
twelve years. Then he had returned a sergeant, and she had married
him and followed him with his regiment, which was that in which
Captain Sankey--at that time a young ensign--served. When the
latter's first child was born at Madras there was a difficulty in
obtaining a white nurse, and Mrs. Sankey declared that she would
not trust the child to a native. Inquiries were therefore made in
the regiment, and Sergeant Wolf's wife, who had a great love for
children although childless herself, volunteered to fill the post
for a time. A few months afterward Sergeant Wolf was killed in a
fight with a marauding hill tribe. His widow, instead of returning
home and living on the little pension to which she was entitled at
his death, remained in the service of the Sankeys, who soon came
to regard her as invaluable.

She was somewhat rough in her ways and sharp with her tongue; but
even Mrs. Sankey, who was often ruffled by her brusque independence,
was conscious of her value, and knew that she should never obtain
another servant who would take the trouble of the children so entirely
off her hands. She retained, indeed, her privilege of grumbling,
and sometimes complained to her husband that Abijah's ways were