Grandmother Elsie

COMPLETE AUTHORIZED EDITION
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together. —Shakespeare
Published by arrangement with Dodd, Mead and Company
A.L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
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1882, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1910, BY CHARLES B. FINLEY
Every state, Allotted to the race of man below, Is in proportion, doom'd to taste some sorrow. — Rowe .
The Ion family were at home again after their summer on the New Jersey coast.
It was a delightful morning early in October: the dew-drops on the still green grass of the neatly kept lawn sparkled in the rays of the newly risen sun; the bright waters of the lakelet also, as, ruffled by the breeze, they broke gently about the prow of the pretty row-boat moored to the little wharf; the gardens were gay with bright-hued flowers, the trees gorgeous in their autumnal dress.
But though doors and windows were open, the gardener and his assistants at work in the grounds, there seemed a strange quiet about the place: when the men spoke to each other it was in subdued tones; there was no sound—as in other days—of little feet running hither and thither, nor of childish prattle or laughter.