Mallowbanks, January 21st.
My own Carin:
I no longer have a grandmother.
She has gone. She is dead; but we are trying not to grieve. We are thinking of her as sailing on “the waters of quiet” to where her husband and her beloved son await her.
It was her love for that dead son, my father, that brought about her death. Soon after I wrote you last, we could see that a cloud was settling over her spirit. She was very restless and could not sleep, but would go wandering about the house if she were not prevented.
“I reckon ole Miss has got to studyin’ about Mars Jack again,” said Semmy to me. Indeed, all of us in the house could see that this was so. She became suspicious of us and thought we were watching her to prevent her from going out to her boy. She thought he was living again, young and wayward, with no friend but herself, and though she seemed to be reasonable enough upon other subjects, in regard to that she was quite insane.
Martha was set to watch her early and late, and when she was weary Semmy or I took her place. She was sweet and gay at moments. One afternoon she showed me her painted fans and her jewels, and told me they would be mine, some day, and I was naughty enough to say:
“But madam grandmother, what shall little Azalea do with all those? Don’t you think her little string of ‘Job’s tears’ and a peacock fan made by herself become her better?”
That teased her, as I knew it would.
“My dear Azalea,” she said in her most earnest manner, “you are a true Knox, and these jewels and fans will become you. Wear them, not only for your own sake, but for the credit of your family.”