wretched, with a weight on my
heart that it seemed to me I would never get rid of. Suddenly--so
suddenly that I could hardly believe my own senses, something caught my
eye that entirely changed my whole ideas. I darted forward, my father was
a few steps in front of me--the footpath was so narrow in the old town
that there was often not room for two abreast--_and_----"

Just at this moment the door opened, and grandmother's maid appeared with
the tea-tray. Molly gave an impatient shake.

"Oh, _what_ a bother!" she said. "I quite forgot about tea. And
immediately after tea it is always time for us to go to bed. It is eight
o'clock now, oh grandmother, _do_ finish the story to-night."

"And why cannot my little girl ask it without all those shakes and
'bothers?'" said grandmother. She spoke very gently, but Molly looked
considerably ashamed.

"Yes, grandmother dear," she replied meekly. Then she got up from the rug
and stood by aunty patiently, while she poured out the tea, first
"grandmothering" each cup to keep it from slipping about, then warming
them with a little hot water, then putting in the beautiful yellow cream,
the sugar, and the nice rich brown tea, all in the particular way
grandmother liked it done. And during the process, Molly did not once
wriggle or twist with impatience, so that when she carried grandmother's
tea to her, very carefully and steadily, without a drop spilling over
into the saucer in the way grandmother disliked to see, she got a kiss by
way of reward, and what was still better perhaps, grandmother looked up
and said,

"That's _my_ good little woman. There is not much more of what you call
'my story,' to tell, but such as it is, you may sit up to hear it, if you
like."

CHAPTER VIII.

GRANDMOTHER'S STORY----(_continued_).

"O while you live, tell truth."

HENRY IV., Part 1.

So in a few minutes they were all settled again, and grandmother went on.

"We were walking through a very narrow street, I was telling you--was I
not? when I caught sight of something that suddenly changed my ideas.
'What was this something?' you are all asking, I see. It was a china cup
in a shop window we were passing, a perfect match it seemed to me of the
unfortunate one still lamenting its fate by rattling its bits in my
pocket! It was a shabby little old shop, of which there were a good many
in the town, filled with all sorts of curiosities, and quite in the front
of the window, as