wn in the country, and many
were the hours spent by the little party about the Bath-chair, in the
shade of the woods.

At these times grandmamma would often speak of the children she had
lost, and of the happy years which she had spent with them. How very
pleasant good and cheerful old people are! They are pleasanter than
young ones, because they have seen so much, and have so many old
stories to tell. Grandmamma remembered the time when ladies wore large
hoops and long ruffles and lappets, and when gentlemen's coats were
trimmed with gold lace. She could tell of persons who had been born
above a hundred years ago, persons she had herself seen and talked to;
and her way of talking was not like that of many grown-up people who
make children covetous and envious. That was not grandmamma's way; she
was like the eagle in the fable, always trying to encourage her eaglets
to fly upwards; and she did this so pleasantly that her grandchildren
were never tired of hearing her talk. One of grandmamma's stories is so
interesting that we will relate it in this place.

[Illustration: "_A hundred years ago._"--Page 455.]

Grandmamma's History of Evelyn Vaughan. Part I.

[Illustration: To teach little Francis his letters]

"Will it not sound very strange to you, my dear children," said old
Mrs. Fairchild, "to hear me talk of people, whom I knew very well, who
were born one hundred years or more ago? But when you know that I can
remember many things which happened seventy years ago, and that I then
knew several people who were more than seventy years old--even Henry
will be able to make out more than a hundred years since the time that
they were born."

"Stop, grandmamma," said Henry, "and I will do the sum in the sand."

Henry then took a stick and wrote 70 on the ground.

"Now add to that another seventy, and cast it up, my boy," said
grandmamma.

"It comes," cried Henry, "to a hundred and forty; only think,
grandmamma, you can remember people who were born a hundred and forty
years ago: how wonderful!"

"And the odd years are not counted," remarked Emily: "perhaps if we
were to count them they might come up to a hundred and fifty."

"Very likely, my dears," said the old lady; "so do you all sit still,
and I will begin my story.

"One hundred and, we will say, forty years ago, there resided near the
town of Reading, in which I was born, a very wealthy family, descended
from the nobility, though through a younger