ago. Grandmamma was eighty-eight last July! No one would think it to
look at her. She is not deaf or blind or any of those annoying things,
and she sits bolt-upright in her chair, and her face is not very
wrinkled--more like fine, old, white kid. Her hair is arranged with
such a _chic_; it is white, but she always has it a little powdered as
well, and she wears such becoming caps, rather like the pictures of
Madame du Deffand. They are always of real lace--I know, for I have
to mend them. Some of her dresses are a trifle shabby, but they look
splendid when she puts them on, and her eyes are the eyes of a hawk,
the proudest eyes I have ever seen. Her third and little fingers are
bent with rheumatism, but she still polishes her nails and covers the
rest of her hands with mittens. You can't exactly love grandmamma, but
you feel you respect her dreadfully, and it is a great honor when she
is pleased.

I was twelve when we left Paris, and I am nineteen now. We have lived
on and off in England ever since, part of the time in London--that was
dull! All those streets and faces, and no one to speak to, and the mud
and the fogs!

During those years we have only twice had glimpses of papa--the
shortest visits, with long talks alone with grandmamma and generally
leaving by the early train.

He seems to me to be rather American, papa, and very coarse to be
the son of grandmamma; but I must say I have always had a sneaking
affection for him. He never takes much notice of me--a pat on the head
when I was a child, and since an awkward kiss, as if he was afraid of
breaking a bit of china. I feel somehow that he does not share all
of grandmamma's views; he seems, in fact, like a person belonging to