It was six years ago, when Di, the eldest of the children, was ten years of age, that 244 she had come home from school one day, breathless with excitement.
“Mamma!” she cried, bursting into the room where her mother was changing the baby’s frock: “Mamma! Have I got a grandfather?”
Mrs. Crosby glanced furtively at the round eyes of the baby, and took the precaution of smothering him in billows of white lawn before replying, rather softly: “Yes, dear; Papa’s father is living. Why do you ask?”
“I saw him to-day.”
“You saw him? Where?”
“On the street.”
“How did you know it was he?”
“Sallie Watson asked me why I didn’t bow to my grandfather.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said: ‘Never you mind!’ And then I ran home all the way, as tight as ever I could run! Mamma, why don’t we ever see him?”