e Vandaleurs could be arranged, Adolphe fell
ill of scarlet fever, and the fear of contagion postponed my visit for
some time.

I was eight years old when I went to stay at The Vine. This was the name
of the little cottage where my great-grandparents lived--so called
because of an old vine which covered the south wall on one side of the
porch, and crept over a framework upon the roof. I do not now remember
how many pounds of grapes it had been known to produce in one season,
and yet I ought not to have forgotten, for it was a subject on which my
great-grandfather, my great-grandmother, Adolphe, and Elspeth constantly
boasted.

"And if they don't just ripen as the master says they do in France, it's
all for the best," said Elspeth; "for ripe grapes would be picked all
along, and the house not a penny the better for them. But green-grape
tarts and cream are just eating for a king."

Elspeth was "general servant" at my great-grandmother's. Her aunt Mary
had come from Scotland to serve "Miss Victoire" when she first married.
As Mary's health failed, and she grew old, her young niece was sent for
to work under her. Old Mary died with her hands in my great-grandmother's,
and Elspeth reigned in her stead.

Elspeth was an elderly woman when I first made her acquaintance. She had
a broad, bright, sensible face, and a kindly smile that won me to her.
She wore frilled caps, tied under her chin; and as to exchanging them
for "the fly-away bits of things servants stick on their heads at the
present time," Elspeth would as soon have thought of abandoning the
faith of her fathers. She was a strict but not bitter Presbyterian. She
was not tall, and she was very broad; her apparent width being increased
by the very broad linen collars which spread, almost like a cape, over
her ample shoulders.

My great-grandmother had an anecdote of me connected with this, which
she was fond of relating.

"And what do you think of Elspeth, little one?" she had said to me on
the first evening of my visit.

"I think she's very big," was my reply.

"Certainly, our good Elspeth is as wide as she is tall," said my
great-grandfather, laughing.

I wondered if this were so; and when my great-grandmother gave me a
little yard-measure in a wooden castle, which had taken my fancy among
the treasures of her work-box, the idea seized me of measuring Elspeth
for my own satisfaction on the point. But the silken measure slipped,
and caught on the battlemen