The Project Gutenberg EBook of When Grandmamma Was New, by Marion Harland

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Title: When Grandmamma Was New
The Story of a Virginia Childhood

Author: Marion Harland

Release Date: April 21, 2008 [EBook #25118]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: THE STORY TELLING.

"'I like, best of all, to hear about what happened when Grandmamma was
new,' said Fritz."--_See page 7._]

When Grandmamma
Was New

THE STORY OF A VIRGINIA
CHILDHOOD

By
Marion Harland

_ILLUSTRATED_

BOSTON
LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY
LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY.

_THIRD THOUSAND_

_Norwood Press_
_J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith_
_Norwood Mass. U.S.A._

_TO_

HORACE AND ERIC
FRITZ, TERHUNE, AND STERLING

This Story

FIRST TOLD TO THEM OVER THE LIBRARY FIRE
IN AUTUMN AND WINTER EVENINGS
_IS MOST LOVINGLY DEDICATED_

SUNNYBANK,
POMPTON, N.J.

Explanatory

It was Fritz who said it first, and when he was three years younger than
he is now.

Somebody asked him what sort of stories he liked best. No doubt he ought
to have said "Bible Stories," such as his mother tells on Sunday
afternoons, and which he does love dearly. But he spoke out what he
really thought and felt at the time of asking, and said, "I like, best
of all, to hear about what happened when Grandmamma was New."

The phrase tickled my fancy, and, thenceforward, I would have no other
title for the sight-draughts made by the boys upon my bank of memory.
When these "vouchers" grew into a volume, no name would serve my turn
except the _mot de famille_ set in circulation by the quaint
five-year-old.

My laddies are well trained. (Good children run in the family.) I
record, pridefully, that the sunny head of the least of the band has
never drooped drowsily while the tale went on, and that his chirp was
distinct in the general plea for, "More--to-morrow night?" with which
th