Jumping from my seat I threw my arms around her neck and kissed her wrinkled, quivering face, saying, "You are a follower of the Princely Man—of the good man, Christ, you are, grandmother——"
A peremptory rap at the door stopped further conversation, and when I opened it, a lady was ushered in to see grandmother.
I was introduced to Mrs. Paton, of whom I had before heard my grandmother speak as "a great Christian worker," and whom I heard my Aunt Gwendolin denounce as a "tiresome crank, spoiling every one's comfort." I looked very earnestly at the lady, trying to fit her into the two definitions.
Mrs. Paton began almost at once to talk about the "temperance movement," and the "evils of intoxicating liquors," and "the selfishness of the onlooking world, who were not the real sufferers."
She left after the expiration of half an hour, and grandmother said to me: "You would not understand Mrs. Paton's remarks, my dear. You will have to be longer in the country before you know what is meant by the 'evils of intoxicating liquors.' Did you ever really see a drunken man?"
"No, grandmother," I said, "I never even heard of one. Drunk!—what does it mean?"
"Oh," said grandmother, "something that as a country we have reason to be terribly ashamed of—men drinking intoxicating liquors until they lose their senses——"
Another rap interrupted grandmother, and we were called out to tea. The only really delightful thing they do in this America is to drink tea, just the same as we do in China.
I see how it is; they have a new Confucius in this America, but they do not live the new Confucius—none but my dear grandmother.