hey could not obtain the only remedy
which ever does any good. Nostalgia means homesickness.

Poor little Nelly was homesick, and in desperation she had fled,
hoping to find, not her own dear, Southern home, for that she knew she
could never see again, but the house of her grandmamma, where she had
some time before left her dear mother. The little girl had, ever since
she could remember, lived very happily with her parents in their
lovely Virginia home. An only child, she was petted to her heart's
content, having scarcely a wish ungratified. But when the war began
her papa became a soldier. Nelly thought he looked very grand in his
uniform of gray with its red trimmings and bright buttons, and rather
liked the idea of having a soldier papa. But after he had gone away
she missed him dreadfully. Her mamma was always so pale and sad that
the child also grew anxious, and could no longer enjoy her play. At
first letters from the absent soldier cheered them, but as the months
passed they ceased to hear at all, except the wild rumors which often
frightened and distressed the anxious wife. "Maum Winnie," an old
negro servant, who claimed to have "raised Mars Ned" (Nelly's papa),
now proved a faithful friend and a great comfort to her mistress; but
Nelly, missing the old woman's cheerful talk and the laugh that used
often to shake her fat sides, thought she had grown cross and
exacting.

The bright morning sunlight sometimes made the little girl forget to
be sorrowful, and when her "Ponto" came frisking around her, she
gladly joined him in a wild romp. Immediately Maum Winnie would
appear, the very picture of dignified astonishment,--"Now, Miss Nelly,
_ain't_ you 'shame'? Yer pore mar she bin had a mity onrestless night,
an' jes' as she 'bout to ketch a nap o' sleep, yere you bin start all
dis 'fusion. Now, her eye dun pop wide open, an' she gwine straight to
studyin' agin." The days passed, each made more gloomy by rumors of
the near approach of the enemy. At last, one dreadful night, a
regiment of Federal soldiers suddenly appeared, and at midnight Nelly
and her mamma were compelled to seek shelter in Maum Winnie's cabin.
The next morning only a heap of smoking ruins remained to show where
their sweet home had been.

The plantation owned by Nelly's papa was some three miles distant from
the family residence; therefore, only the few servants necessary for
household service lived upon the "home place." Their cabins, somewhat