, the little
dears, as long as we are here to give it. I could not bear them ever to
have the idea that we felt them a burden."

"Certainly not," agreed Grandpapa, looking up for a moment. "A _burden_
they can never be; still it is a great responsibility--a great charge,
in one sense, as Nurse said--to have in our old age. For, do the best we
can, my love, we cannot be to them what their parents would have been.
Nor can we hope to be with them till we can see them able to take care
of themselves."

"There is no knowing," said Grandmamma. "God is good. He may spare us
yet some years for the little ones' sakes. And it is a mercy to think
they have each other. It is always 'us' with them--never 'me.'"

"Yes," said Grandpapa, "they love each other dearly;" and as if that
settled all the difficulties the future might bring, he disappeared
finally into the newspaper.

Grandmamma, for her part, _meant_ to disappear into her netting. But
somehow it did not go on as briskly as usual. Her hands seemed to lag,
and more than once she was startled by a tear rolling quickly down her
thin soft old cheek--one of the slow-coming, touching tears of old age.
She would have been sorry for Grandpapa to see that she was crying; she
was always cheerful with him. But of that there was no fear. So
Grandmamma sat and cried a little quietly to herself, for the children's
innocent words had roused some sad thoughts, and brought before her some
pictures of happy pasts and happy "might-have-beens."

"It is strange," she thought to herself, "very strange to think of--that
we two, old and tired and ready to rest, should be here left behind by
them all. All my pretty little ones, who might almost, some of them,
have been grandparents themselves by this time! Left behind to take care
of Duke's babies--ah, my brave boy, that was the hardest blow of all!
The others were too delicate and fragile for this world--I learnt not to
murmur at their so quickly taking flight. But he--so strong and full of
life--who had come through all the dangers of babyhood and childhood,
who had grown up so good and manly, so fit to do useful work in the
world--was there no other victim for the deadly cholera's clutch, out
there in the burning East?" and Grandmamma shuddered as a vision of the
terrible scenes of a plague-stricken land, that she had more than once
seen for herself, passed before her. "We had little cause to rejoice in
the times of peace when they came. It w