e were mysterious drawers full of cards and
puzzles, and glass marbles and old-fashioned toys, that the children's
mother and aunts and uncles, and their great-aunts and uncles before
that, had loved and played with years and years ago. On the wall hung a
great many pictures, some of them of funny little stiff boys in blue
coats with brass buttons, and some of them of little girls with mob-caps
and mittens, and these little boys and girls were all either dead now,
or elderly men and women, for they were the great-aunts and uncles; and
over the mantelpiece hung a picture of a lovely old lady, with bright,
soft brown hair and smiling eyes and lips, that looked as if they were
just going to speak to the two strange little children who had come for
their first visit to their mother's old home. Milly knew quite well that
it was a picture of great-grandmamma. She had seen others like it
before, only not so large as this one, and she looked at it quietly,
with her grave blue eyes, while Olly was eagerly wandering round the
room, spying into everything, and longing to touch this, that, and the
other, if only mother would let go his hand.

"You know who that is, don't you, little woman?" said Aunt Emma, taking
her up on her knee.

"Yes," said Milly, nodding, "it's great-grandmamma. I wish we could have
seen her."

"I wish you could, Milly. She would have smiled at you as she is smiling
in the picture and you would have been sure to have loved her; all
little children did. I can remember seeing your mother, Milly, when she
was about as old as you, cuddled up in a corner of that sofa over there,
in 'grandmamma's pocket,' as she used to call it, listening with all her
ears to great-grandmamma's stories. There was one story called 'Leonora'
that went on for years and years, till all the little children in
it--and the little children who listened to it--were almost grown up;
and then great-grandmamma always carried about with her a wonderful
blue-silk bag full of treasures, which we used to be allowed to turn out
whenever any of us had been quite good at our lessons for a whole week."

"Mother has a bag like that," said Milly; "it has lots of little toys in
it that father had when he was a little boy. She lets us look at it on
our birthdays. Can you tell stories, Aunt Emma?"

"Tell us about old Mother Quiverquake," cried Olly, running up and
climbing on his aunt's knee.

"Oh dear, no!" said Aunt Emma; "it's much too fine to-day