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"It is singular that this people, who we say have no knowledge of hiimes, yet do what the Saxon apparently cannot, live not only peacefully, but happily, under the same roof with mothers-in-law and grandmothera-in-law. Fourgeuerations some- times and never a broil ! How do they do it ? Though really I tliink myself half the trouble in families ia needless ; stupidly so. li, is oidy to let one another alone ; and probably the French, more volatile and easy- tempare I than we, never see nor feel small chafes and rubs as we do. What do you think, Winthrop? I believe you are not at- tending at all." •' Then you believe you could do it ? Suppose (irandmotherOgJen should suddenly descend upon you ?" A chill ran through me. "Don't," I said. "If it were Grandmother May, now. She ia Kood." " Suppose it were both." I looked up again, Winthrop held out to me two letters, and looked puzzled, amused, disturbed, all at once. " What you wdl think about it, I don't know." he said. " The two bombs fell to- gether thi-< aft-rnoon, and whether to place them before you toniglit or not, I have doubted a good deal. It's inevitable, how- ever. I knew this couldn't last." Hooked mechanically at the two envelopes, one, a sickly yellow one with the address Btagiiering up hill; the other, dainty cream, with letters like old copperplate. I opened the yellow one and reau: — " My Dear Grandson, " This is to let vou know that my niece, Maria, havini; expired this day fortnight, »nd her affairs being all settled, I am ready to take the home with you, you promised wheu I WAS a miod to come. I shall be there one week from to-day, and my goods will go ac the same time. " Your grandmother, " M. OODEN. " P.S. You need not meet me. I ain't sure what way I shall come. I know my own way well enough." " I never shall know mine again," I gasped, "I am blind and dumb." " Read the other one. It will serve the same purpose as the second jump into the bramble bush, to quote from your favourite author." I braced myself up. " The other one! It can't be any worse. Now !" " My Dear Grandson Winthrop, " I had counted, as you know, upon spend- ing my last days in my dear old home, which your mother loved to the hist, but it is willed otherwise. Through old CuUigan's careless* ness, the kitchen took Hre yesterday, and from it the rest of the house. My life was spared, though I am greatly overcome liy the shock, and some of my furniture was saved. The neighbours think it very wrong for me to have lived almost aloi)e so long, and now that my home is yo'ie. I am ready to take the one you oifered when I should need it. I have furniture enough for a bed- room, and will bring it unless you had rather I not. Write me what will please yon beat. Pell Eleanor, with my love, tliat I grieve to bring my old age and inlirmities to her, but that it will not be for long, and I shall try to be as little trouble as possible. " Your loving Grandmother, " Sibyl May. " P.S. You always wanted the old side- board and clock. Both are saved, only th« sun and moon part of the clock is gone. ' " Poor soul ! What a loss for her ! What a shock !" I said. " I have never seen that old house after all. She has some sense of fitness, (grandmother Ogden does not even mention my name." " She doea not very much recognize the existence of any woman but herself," Win- throp said, lookiug at me encouragingly. " She ia a type of a great many New £^gUnd HIS GRANDMOTHERS. women- Whateyer a man does is likely to be right; wkateTer a woaan, alwavs except- ing herself, probablj wrong. She is my father's asother, and I am bound to say has always been good to me, as she was to him. She worked herself almost to death to help him through college, a thousand times harder than he witdied or would have allowed could he have helped it, and yet she spoiled my mother's life in good part. I have a curious mixture of feelings toward her. Believe me, I would not have her here if I could help it, but you see I cannot. She has always been with me till father died and Maria needed her. Speak it out, Eleanor. Don't let any cousjiderations restrain you. Vs e will con- sider her a purely impersonal grandmother, who can be criticised without hurting any- body's feelings." " 1 never saw her but once," I said, lage and mirth struggling together. "Will we ever forget it ? Horrid thing ! And to think she is coming here to live ! I never heard anything pleasant about her, except that she worked herself to skin and bone for people, and that is not strictly pleasant. What shall we do?" Winthrop looked at me reflectively. " If you only had two, things would balance better," he said. "It's a calamity that you have no relations. Can't you think of one ?" " Only poor Aunt Anna, in Washington, and she hates the north so, no power could bring her here. These ' presumptuous vil- yuus of Yankees.she is always railing against, would kdl her in a month. Winthrop, she will want breakfast at six and dinner at twelve. I shall go wild." " Set your mind at rest on those points," Winthrop said, a little c;lint of resolution in his eyes. " We will keep our home the same as much as we can. It won't be so bad. She always did stay in her room a good deal. She has the old clothes of sevcal genera- tions, and mends them periodically. How- lucky that we have plenty of room and need not crowd !" " But the house is bursting with furniture now, and those very rooms are pretty as possible. We shall have to store it, if they bring theirs. Suppose we leave both as they are. Perhaps they will like them well enough not to change." " No such good luck," said Winthrop, "The attic is enormous, I never knew why before. Now it will be full. We shall feel that we came over in the Mayflower. Do you know these letters were both written the same day. To-day is Moi iay. Grandmother Ogden will be here on i all the ill bristle it points. will not }earauce. es so far Eleanor. told you, fact she [1 ere who V" IS I indigna- nt detest- but she no own ;ed. My !uce, and at the tie iretty old e a baby. and gay anor, she nd talk* 1." 1 said, st shock, for senti- t she any WHO, WHEN, WHY AND HOW. money ? Hasn't Mrs. Ogden any money ? Can't they hoard somewhere? " Winthrop ran his fingers through his hair despondently. " No, to all the three questions. At any rate, not enough for that. Grandmother Ogden has two hundred a year and pays all her expenses rigidly. Never <»llows me to pay even a horsecar fare. Grandmother May rented half her house and boarded with the people by way of payment. She cannot have more than a hundred a year, now that is gone. She had a good deal of her own, but grandfather's brother, the family scamp, spirited it away, with plenty more. " " I see that it's inevitable. Please be perfectly quiet, Winthrop. I'm going to think, and whenever anything particularly awful occurs to me, I shall tell you at once. " I leaned back in my low chair and looked about. Nothing grand, but everything so comfortable and homelike. The cheery open fire, the sort light from the German student lamp ; books and pictures all about. Ruben- stein, the family cat, on his cushion, and lazy Nap stretched out on the rug, evidently, from sudden starts' and snaps, worrying an imaginary cat, as he longed to do with Rubenstein, whose presence was a source of anguish to his doggish soul. Five years be- fore I had l)een a teacher in a great school. Winthrop had never seen me, and this very room was a stifling piece of splendour, opened and used for state gatherings, never at any other time. Then we met at Mt. Desert. I could recall every least detail, antl when my next term closed, my resignation was given, and we c inie home to the old ]'lace, which had been rented ever since old Mr. Ogde)i's death. Winthrop had boarded in New York, and at first proposed our living there, but finding our joint incomes would mean ve»-y little in city housekeeping, decided to try the Country instead. Grandmother Ogden had come to the wed- ding. She was seventy-one then, but looked not over sixty. It was in church, but a remote country church, and very (juiet and cimple. She looked me through and through unsmilingly. In point of fact, she glarcl, only I was too preoccupied to think nmcli about it. We took boat up the river that afternoon, having said good- by to the party of friends at the depot where we separated. It was a burning July day. The deck was crowded, l-.ut VV'intlirop secured two arm- chairs, and I sat, looking down the long cabin, and waiting for hij return. 1 am just near-sighted enough to insist upon not carry- ing glasHes, and as I looked, would not for a moment believe my eyes. There, pushing her way through the crowd, the same grim. black bonnet, the same little musty black l)ag which had come to the wedding, came grandmother Ogden, looking on every side, and making a dash forward as she saw Winthrop. "I couldn't let you, I couldn't !" she said in an agonized sort of voice which fixed the attention of all about us. " You've taken away my grandchild and I can't get over it. Yon meant well enough, ^ut I can't and won't let him go alone !" Now as Winthrop was then thirty-one and I twenty-six, it might reasonably l>e sup- posed safe to let him go alone. There was a general smile. How could any one help iti, as the tall, dignified man, fiery red as to face, but composed in man- ner, seated her in the reserved chair, as if nothing could be more natural or fitting than to take one's grandmother on one's wedding journey. I flew to my stateroom, wishing I could drop her overboard. Then a degree of pity for the lonely old woman came over me. I determined to make the best of it and re- turned to the deck. Evidently Winthrop had been speaking his mind. There was a subdued sniff now and then from Mrs, Og- den, who, however, tried to make herself agreeable. We parted next morning at Al- bany, and I expected, with inward dread, to find her at Glenville on our return. Fortu- nately for us, her only other relative, an in- valid niece, sent a pitiful appeal to come and care for her last days, and she went. The days ran on into months and years, and I ha:ed over me and my omissions and commissions. There's another thing. Mrs. Ogden thinks the house is just as she left it. She'll become rigid as Mr. F's aunt when she enters this parlour. On the whole, I am glad Fanny is coming, because her being company will partially protect me." "Come up stairs," said W^inthrop. "I want to look at the space and see if grand- mother will have room to stand if she brings all she wants. We'll have the old clock on the landing. Where shall the sideboard go ?" "Not another thing about auythii.g to- night, "'an' you love nie, Hal. ' My brain is a mere sieve. I'm actually exhausted. To-morrow we can plan. " CHAPTER li, TEA. Keflections on duty ought to come at this point, and the record that, with early morn- ing, a sweet spirit of self-sacritice tilled my soul, and I Icmged for the moment wherein I might embrace both grandmothers. Truth compels an opposite statement, and 1 mean to be strictly literal as I can. But truth and light being synonymous, and light taking the colour of whatever medium it passes through, you will see that I, being blue as indigo within and purple with indignation without, that a change must be made, to say nothing of a suspicion of green in the way of jealousy that anyone had a right to Winthrop but myself,mu8t necessarily makeaparti-coloured statement. I did keep my worst feelings to TEA, at way," iiing you, 3 darken \^'e are I't knock ben make 1, but be lunatics." M hire a .severely, [ might liny tiieir mv more, id a time, ;h a good preon tea ) meter at rop, it is ;(len was we could jiece. It's '• it. Yea, )ii't mind feel as if ying glass e and my 's another se is just :d as Mr. jr. On the because y protect irop. "I if "rand- ;hri brings clock on sideboard thiijg to- My brain iiausted. at this ly morn- tilled my therein I Truth 1 mean ruth and king the through, indigo without, uothing jealousy irop but coloured elingB to myself, and <'irove Winthrop to the depot as usual, returning slowly as even Prince's soul could desire, and thinknig all the way. On the way down the great express- waggon pass- ed us, but I did noL bok up. Usually, unless rainy, I drove straight up to the barn, for it was one of the tacitly understood laws of the pla'je. that unless perfectly convenient for himself, Tea should never appear at such times, or indeed any times. This niornino: the doors were open and a strange array till- ed all the available space. Tea stood in the midst, and his small eyes twinkle 1 as he lookeil from them to me. "It's Mis' Ogden's things, Mis' Win- throp ; the things sh« took when she went to Mariar," he said, "and here's her letter to me about 'em. .She says she shall bring boxes with her, but tiiis bed has got to be set up ill her room before she gets here. She can't sleep no way on anything but a sackin' bottom, an' she s^s I know jest what used to be in her room, an' I'm to set 'em all up the way I know she wants 'em. Fact is, she'd hev a tit in that roem the way you've got it, with your frills and fuss and' what not, au' pictcs an' the rest, she's got pioters, but they ain't your kind. Where'll I put your things so's to begin ?" "I will let you know when I am ready to have you come in," I said with dignity. Tea looked at me critically. It was always a debate in his mind whether we were friends or foes. Foes certainly, when it became a question of altering anything indoors or out. Ten years with the Ogden family had con- vinced him of the perfection of everything belonging to them, and my five years' reign seemed to him utter anarchy and upheaval. Still there was a sense of humour in the man which sometimes played over his leathery countenance, and lighted up his melancholy brown eyes, and at heart he was kindness it- self. No mummy could well have been leaner. His bones seemed to creak as he ■jyalked. His best fitting clothes flapped wildly in the wind, aud his worst were merely bags in which he lost himself each morning, and hitched promiscuously all day in pursuit of stray bone which might help to fill out an arm or a leg. His house was at the upper end ot our eight acres. In it dwelt his fourth wife with three children, the youngest, a weasened and attenuated baby, so Btartlingly like Tea that it was as if we viewed him through the small end of an opera flass. " I've hedfour sorts o' wives," he said one day in a burst of confidence. "All kinds you might say. None of 'em was healthy, but then the chills wouldn't let 'em be. Seliny was the fust, and as smart a gal as ever you ■ee. Mis' Winthrop. That was when I was in Vermont yet with my own folks. She hed gallopin' consumption, an' die )es not think or not. As een used to, e, we have sa they wasn't as she went any times I iks failed, the last I made e stopped by •s. Wingate, a curiosity it o satisfy. If Mrs. Gay, I ,ud probably rs. Wingate at last left, isappointed, •ugh to know le just then, ver, though jontined ne ed no stray- ma. It was eliug in the unny spots, very delical« misty sug- me lay the ne of Jersey sharp clelt ;h were the A peaceful, wonderfully (naster gave y mail, and lonable than to liTe with TEA people," I said to myself : " I am happy and contented alone, or with jnst the friends I care for, but this frij^htful calling ! The idea that anybody has the right to enter my house, torment me for an hour with useless curiosity, force me to rack my brains for anything that will keep her quiet,