IN THE COPPICE.
Grandmother's eyes looked very bright as she replied. "Mind, my Ralph? No, indeed. I am only glad you should have so manly and self-denying an example as Prosper's, and still more glad that you should have the right feeling and moral courage to follow it. Poor old woman! is she quite alone in the world? She must be very grateful to her little next-door neighbour."
"I don't know that she is—at least not so very," said Ralph. "The fun of it was, that for ever so long she didn't know where the little wood came from. Prosper found a key that opened the door, and when she was out he carried in the fagots, and laid the fire all ready for her with some of them; and when she came in he peeped through the keyhole. She was so surprised, she couldn't make it out. And the wood he had fetched lasted a week, and then he got some more. But the next time she found him out."
"And what did she say?"
"At first she was rather offended, till he explained how he had got it; and then she thanked him, of course, but not so very much, I fancy. He always says old people are grumpy—doesn't 'grogneur' mean grumpy, grandmother?—that they can't help it, and when his old woman is grumpy he only laughs a little. But you're not grumpy, grandmother, and you're old; at least getting rather old."
"Decidedly old, my boy. But why should I be grumpy? And how do you know I shouldn't be so if I were living up alone in an attic, with no children to love and cheer me, my poor old hands swollen and twisted with rheumatism, perhaps, and very little money. Ah, what a sad picture! Poor old woman, I must try to find out some way of helping her."
"She washes lace for ladies, Prosper says," said Ralph, eagerly. "Perhaps if you had some lace to wash, grandmother."
"I'll see what I can do," said grandmother. "You get me her name and address from Prosper. And, Ralph, we might think of something for a little Christmas present for her, might we not? You must talk to your friend about it. I suppose his relations are not likely to interest themselves in his protégée?"
"No," said Ralph. "His aunt is young, and dresses very grandly, and I don't think she takes much notice of Prosper himself. Oh no, you could do it much better than any one else, grandmother; find out all about her and what she would like—in a nice sort of way, you know."
Grandmother drew Ralph to her and kissed him. "My own dear boy," she said.
Ralph got rather red, but his eyes shone with pleasure nevertheless. "Grandmother," he said, half shyly, "I've had a lesson about not calling fellows cads in a hurry, but all the same you won't forget about telling us the story of Uncle Jack's cad, will you?"
"What a memory you have, Ralph," said grandmother. "You're nearly as bad for stories as Molly. No, I haven't forgotten. As well as I could remember, I have written out the little story—I only wish I had had it in your uncle's own words. But such as it is, I will read it to you all this evening."
Grandmother went to her Davenport, and took out from one of the drawers some sheets of ruled paper, which she held up for Ralph to see. On the outside one he read, in grandmother's neat, clear handwriting, the words——