ctly,"
returned the other submissively, and she began again a long paragraph
which, I gathered vaguely, related to that outward humility which is the
becoming and appropriate garment for a race of miserable sinners.

"That is better," commented the old lady, in an utterly ungrateful
manner, "though you have never succeeded in properly rolling your r's.
There, that will do for to-day, we will continue the sermon upon
Humility to-morrow."

She was so little and thin and wrinkled that it was a mystery to me, as
I looked at her, how she managed to express so much authority through so
small a medium. The chair in which she sat seemed almost to swallow her
in its high arms of faded green leather; and out of her wide, gathered
skirt of brocade, her body rose very erect, like one of my mother's
black-headed bonnet pins out of her draped pincushion. On her head there
was a cap of lace trimmed gayly with purple ribbons, and beneath this
festive adornment, a fringe of false curls, still brown and lustrous,
lent a ghastly coquetry to her mummied features. In the square of
sunshine, between the gauze curtains at the window, a green parrot, in a
wire cage, was scolding viciously while it pecked at a bit of
sponge-cake from its mistress's hand. At the time I was too badly
frightened to notice the wonderful space and richness of the room, with
its carved rosewood bookcases, and its dim portraits of beruffled
cavaliers and gravely smiling ladies.

"Sally," said the old lady, turning upon me a piercing glance which was
like the flash of steel in the sunlight, "is that a boy?"

Going over to the armchair, the little girl stood holding the kitten
behind her, while she kissed her grandmother's cheek.

"What is it, Sally, dear?" asked the younger woman, closing her book
with a sigh.

"It's a boy, mamma," answered the child.

At this the old lady stiffened on her velvet cushions. "I thought I had
told you, Sally," she remarked icily, "that there is nothing that I
object to so much as a boy. Dogs and cats I have tolerated in silence,
but since I have been in this house no boy has set foot inside the
doors."

"I am sure, dear mamma, that Sally did not mean to disobey you,"
murmured the younger woman, almost in tears.

"Yes, I did, mamma," answered the child, gravely, "I meant to disobey
her. But he has such nice blue eyes," she went on eagerly, her lips
glowing as she talked until they matched the bright red of her dancing
shoes; "a