hat my
grandfather wore short trousers called 'escarpins' and stockings reaching
to the knee. My grandmother, spite of her sixty-six years--she married
before she was seventeen--was said to look remarkably pretty. Later I
often saw the heavy white silk dress strewn with tiny bouquets which she
wore as a bride and again remodelled at her silver wedding; for after her
death it was left to my mother. Modern wedding gowns are not treasured so
long. I have often wondered why I recollect my grandfather so distinctly
and my grandmother so dimly. I have a clear idea of her personal
appearance, but this I believe I owe much more to her portrait which hung
in my mother's room beside her husband's, and is now one of my own most
cherished possessions. Bradley, one of the best English portrait
painters, executed it, and all connoisseurs pronounce it a masterpiece.

This festival lives in my memory like the fresh spring morning of a day
whose noon is darkened by clouds, and which ends in a heavy thunderstorm.

Black clouds had gathered over the house adorned with garlands and
flowers, echoing for days with the gay conversations, jests, and
congratulations of the relatives united after long separation and the
mirth of children and grandchildren. Not a loud word was permitted to be
uttered. We felt that something terrible was impending, and people called
it grandfather's illness. Never had I seen my mother's sunny face so
anxious and sad. She rarely came to us, and when she did for a short time
her thoughts were far away, for she was nursing her father.

Then the day which had been dreaded came. Wherever we looked the women
were weeping and the eyes of the men were reddened by tears. My mother,
pale and sorrowful, told us that our dear grandfather was dead.

Children cannot understand the terrible solemnity of death. This is a
gift bestowed by their guardian angels, that no gloomy shadows may darken
the sunny brightness of their souls.

I saw only that cheerful faces were changed to sad ones, that the figures
about us moved silently in sable robes and scarcely noticed us. On the
tables in the nursery, where our holiday garments were made, black
clothes were being cut for us also, and I remember having my mourning
dress fitted. I was pleased because it was a new one. I tried to
manufacture a suit for my Berlin Jack-in-the-box from the scraps that
fell from the dressmaker's table. Nothing amuses a child so much as to
imitate what old