she said, "of the many happy hours they
had formerly enjoyed together." I sat reading in a distant corner of the
room when this letter was received, almost concealed by the folds of the
curtains; and the other children being out of the room, I overheard my
father say:

"I do not remember much else but being whipped, and sent supperless to
bed; if they _were_ happy hours, it must have been on the principle of
the frogs--'What is play to you is death to us.'"

My mother smiled; but she replied softly: "Perhaps she is changed now,
Arthur; do not say anything against her before the children, for she is
a stranger, entitled to our hospitality--and I would not have her
welcome a chilling one."

In process of time the old lady arrived, accompanied by a colored
servant who answered to the name of Venus. Fred christened her "the
black divinity," at which she became highly offended; and ever after,
there was a perpetual war of words waging between the two. My
grandmother was a small, dark-complexioned woman, with an exceedingly
haughty, and very repulsive expression. She received all her
daughter-in-law's endeavors to make her feel at home as a natural right;
and appeared to consider other people intended only for her sole use and
benefit. As I glanced from her to my mother's fair, soft beauty, and
strikingly sweet expression, I formed a comparison between the two not
much to my grandmother's advantage.

We soon found that the old lady had a great idea of taking the reins
into her own hands; the children were scolded, and threatened, and
locked up in dark closets, until, to use their own expression, they
became, most "dreadfully good," and never dared to show off under the
espionage of those eagle eyes. During the summer, our parents were
absent for some weeks on a pleasure jaunt; and Grandmother Chesbury
having the entire control of us, we were obliged to behave very
differently from usual. She kept us all in awe except Fred; but on him
it was impossible to make the least impression. If she tyrannized over
the rest us, it was abundantly repaid by the teazings of my mischievous
brother.

The old lady was extremely violent in temper, and after irritating it to
the highest pitch, or, as he termed it, "putting on the steam," he
provoked her still more by his polite sarcasms and tantalizing replies.
The object of contest between them was generally the last word in the
argument; and when victory appeared to incline neither to on