LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 519, 16 February 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HOs MY GRANDMOTHER CAME TO MARRY MY GRANDFATHER. {From the Belgravia Annual .] It was yesterday afternoon, the twentysixth day of August, eighteen hundred and seventy-five, that grandmother said to me, as the dinner things were being cleared away and grandfather lit his pipe : ‘ Barbara, I think you want a new silk dress. Come upstairs with me, and have a look at a peach-coloured gros de Naples, which I’ve had lying by in the walnut wardrobe this twenty years. ’ I obeyed in silence, being already deep in sleeves and the relative merits of black Maltese and white yak. ‘ You see,’ observed my grandmother, when we reached the landing where the walnut wardrobe stands, ‘ clothes ain’t like wine, they don’t improve by keeping; I don’t sanction vanity, nor consider the present fashions as anything but most ridiculous and disfiguring, still young folks have a right to be kept comfortable if so be that the means of them they come of will allow it. There! ’ exclaimed she, pushing back the doors, and disclosing my present to my anxious eyes ; ‘ there it is ; and now you must see what can be done with it.

*O, thank you, granny dear ! ’ exclaimed I, embracing he* with fervour; ‘ that kind of pinky-yellow suits dax-k-haired girls so well. Thank you ever so much; it is lovely; but I think it should be made long, don’t you ? ’ ‘ That” for Mrs Peters to decide,’ responded my # grandmother gravely, taking the dress from its peg and shaking it out. ‘lt used to look very nice as it is. I only wore it twice—your mother’s wedding and your christening— but, of course, everything’s so altered since then ; ’ with a sigh. ‘ Why do you sigh, granny ? ’ inquired I ; * don’t you feel well ‘I ’ ‘ Yes, my dear,’ she replied ; but her tone was something less than emphatic. Then she threw the dress over her arm and turned into her own room. ‘ I’ve got some lace somewhere,’ pursued she, depositing her burden on the sofa, whither I speedily followed, on examination bent, ‘ which I think would do nicely to rum in the neck and sleeves, if only I can put my hands on it.’ And she forthwith pulled open the drawer wherein she stows away such decorative items as are not in general use. ‘ Dear, dear! ’ ejaculated the beloved soul, when, having ransacked three of her odds-and-ends boxes unsuccessfully, she prepared to attack a fourth— ‘ dear, dear !if I keep on standing like this, I shall never get out this evening* ‘ Let me look ! ’ exclaimed I eagerly, delighted to get the chance of rummaging over all those treasures : * yes, do. I won’t hurt anything ; I’ll be so careful,’ At first my grandmother seemed doubtful as to the wisdom (ff closing with this proposal, just as though an old lady like her, sixty-fiv* years of age, could have any secrets. At first my grandmother seemed doubtful, I repeat; but then a glance at th,e *

arm-chair lent additional ties ; and after one more the form of ‘ltwould be auc^E, ?2 t -a to miss your walk,’ she l .’/‘M force of circumstances, and disputed possession of my own like much, and the mysterious 1 liked better. ‘ Can’t you find it, my dear ! ’ grandmother, after I had been some five minutes. 1 I’m almost in the sandal-wood box, for it was^^HH[ week that ’ ‘ I’ve got it, granny! ’ I something else as well, a locket—no, locket, a miniature. See ! ’ and I held up a small delicately painted oval portrait of a young man with curly light hair, and long blue eyes, and a round good-tempered face, not what I should call a handsome young man by any means—l like dark heroiclooking people—but still not ugly, which had just yielded itself captive to my adventurous fingers. For a second or so granny did not speak, she only looked at the picture; looked sadly, tenderly. She did not speak for some little while, I repeat—how often do I have to repeat, to be sure !—then she said gently: ‘ Put it back, my dear; put it back.’ ‘ But who is it, granny? ’ inquired I, with my usual inquisitiveness, favouring it with closer scrutiny ; ‘some old friend of yours? * ‘ Yes,’ she answered, * a very old friend; the young man I was to have been married to.’ * No ! ’ I exclaimed, in the hugest amarement. ‘ Not really! ’ * But really.’ smiled she composedly. ‘But why weren’t you married to him, then ?’ I demanded, gazing with suddenlyawakened interest on the features of my possible grandfather. ‘lt is a long story, and a sad one,'was the grave reply. ‘ Indeed, it all happened so long ago that it seems quite like a dream. Poor Fred !’

* Fred is a nice name,’ adventured I demurely ; ‘ and what a pretty rose he has in his button-hole!’

‘ Ah,’she sighed, “’twas the last I ever gave him, for he went to London to have that picture taken as a wedding gift for me. that very afternoon; and when we met again, he had barely four-and-twenty hours to live.’

‘ 0 dear,’ I said, ‘ how sad! But I should so like to hear more—to hear the whole history from beginning to end—if it wouldn’t pain you to tell me.’ ‘ I don’t know that it would do that,’ responded my grandmother soberly; ‘but I don’t see much use in opening up old troubles ; you know the proverb says, ‘ Let a sleeping dog lie.’ ’

‘But proverbs aren’t always right, I argued. ‘ Indeed one would act very selfishly, I think, if one always took their advice.’

* That may be,’ allowed granny mildly. ‘Andyou will tell me; you will be a de lightful darling old gran!’ seizing on my particular stool, setting it at her feet, and depositing myself thereon, the miniature iu my lap. My grandmother laughed and settled her cap—a black and white one, with peacock blue bows. I made it for her last night. ‘ Well,’ said she, after a pause; *if I do tell you, it is only because I know you will give me no peace till I have ; but you must first promise me that you will not repeat anything that I may say ; for though ’ ‘Gran !’ I exclaimed indignantly,’ * what do you take me for ? Do you think J don’t knew how to keep a secret?’ And my cheeks got as hot as flames

‘Bless me, child!’ ejaculated she somewhat tartly. * There’s no need to fly into a passion ; you’re just like your father, now a lamb and then a lion—as pleased as Punch one minute and ready to snap your mother’s head off the next. I don’t approve of such unreasonable ways !’

* I beg your pardon, granny,’ I replied meekly ; ‘ I didn’t intend to be rude, only I can’t bear to be thought mean.’ ‘ Very well!’ slightly mollified. ‘ Because you know,’ I pursued aggrievedly, ‘ I never do, by any chance, carry tales or backbite people, and I should as soon dream of ’ ‘ Very well,’ interposed my grandmother, still more mollified, being the sweetesttempered of old ladies by nature, and as difficult to make real angry as —grandfather’s pony; very well; then in that case I’ll try to refresh my memory for your benefit.’ * Your great-grandparents, you know, Barbara, were scarcely so well to do in the world as we are. Indeed, when I was a child, father used to work at the Abington Hall; we used to live at Abington; that’s forty and odd miles from here—as gardener, boot-cleaner, extra hand in the stables, just anything almost that was required ; for what with the constant wars and the bad seasons there wa« scarce any money in the country, and the little there was seemed to lodge in the pockets of those who wanted it least, as is commonly the case* when things get out of order. But by deSees matters took a turn for the betterncle Jacob died and left us a thousand! pounds, which enabled father to buy the Mere Farm, and get back into his old way o£ life, and mother’s health improved, and altogether we were looked upon as quite thriving people. If this change had not occurred, I suppose I should have been sent to service. Yes, you may knit your brows, my dear, but food’s not to be had for the asking in thfc world; and it is far better for a yonng woman to earn her ora livelihood and lay by a little against a rainy day than to potter away her life at home, the plague of her relations, and the laughing stock of her neighbours. I was never against work myself, though not strong. As it happened, however, there was no need for me to do more than help mother with the dairy and the housekeeping, and see that father had buttons on his shirts and a mended pair of socks when he wanted them. So we lived on as contented and cheerful as could be, until one day a strange gentleman called, and told us that poor Dick—your greatuncle Richard, who had run away to school when a lad of twelve, and whom we had last heard of as being on board the Dartmouth, and behaving with great bravery at the battle of Navarino—had died of yellow fever in the West Indies, after commissioning him, Lieutenant Alwyne, to find us out, and give us his true love and a lot of foreign curiosities which he had collected during his voyages.’ “0, the strange gentleman was Fred Alwyne,” I observed, nodding my head with grave approval. There was a dramatic propriety about this coincidence which sootned my sense of fitness. {To b& continued.) .