too, when
she was a little girl!" said little Elsie, seating herself upon his
knee, twining her arms about his neck, and looking coaxingly into his
face.

"Ah, what a dear little girl your mamma was at your age!" he said,
stroking her hair and gazing fondly first at her and then at her
mother, "the very joy of my heart and delight of my eyes! though not
dearer than she is now."

Elsie returned the loving glance and smile, while her namesake daughter
remarked, "Mamma couldn't be nicer or sweeter than she is now; nobody
could."

"No, no! no indeed!" chimed in the rest of the little flock. "But
grandpa please tell the story. You never did tell it to us."

"No," he said, half sighing, "but you shall have it now." Then went on
to relate how he had first met their mother's mother, then a very
beautiful girl of fifteen.

An acquaintance took him to call upon a young lady friend of his, to
whom Elsie Grayson was paying a visit, and the two were in the
drawing-room together when the young men entered.

"What did you think the first minute you saw her, grandpa?" asked Eddie.

"That she had the sweetest, most beautiful face and perfect form I had
ever laid eyes on, and that I would give all I was worth to have her for
my own."

"Love at first sight," his daughter remarked, with a smile, "and it was
mutual."

"Yes she told me afterward that she had loved me from the first; though
the longer I live the more I wonder it should have been so, for I was a
wild, wayward youth. But she, poor thing, had none to love or cherish
her but her mammy."

"Grandpa, I think you're very nice," put in little Vi, leaning on his
knee, and gazing affectionately into his face.

"I'm glad you do," he said, patting her soft round cheek.

"But to go on with my story. I could not keep away from my charmer, and
for the next few weeks we saw each other daily.

"I asked her to be my own little wife and she consented. Then early one
morning we went to a church and were married; no one being present
except the minister, the sexton, and her friend and mine, who were
engaged to each other, and her faithful mammy.

"Her guardian was away in a distant city and knew nothing about the
matter. He was taken sick there and did not return for three months, and
during that time Elsie and I lived together in a house she owned in New
Orleans.

"We thought that now that we were safely married, no one could ever
separate us, and we were very, very happy.