I must certainly have presented a very comical appearance, but the little old lady’s smiles died away, and her eyes filled with tears.
“It is strange, is it not,” she said to Aunt Theresa, “that, after all, I should laugh at this meeting?”
Then, sitting down on a box by the door, she held out her hands to me, saying:
“Come, little Margery, there is no sin in practising one’s good manners before the mirror. Come and kiss me, dear child; I am your father’s father’s mother. Is not that to be an old woman? I am your great-grandmother.”
My great-grandmother’s voice was very soft, her cheek was soft, her cloak was soft. I buried my face in the fur, and cried quietly to myself with shame and excitement; she stroking my head, and saying:
“Pauvre petite!—thou an orphan, and I doubly childless! It is thus we meet at last to join our hands across the graves of two generations of those we love!”
“It was a dreadful thing!” said Mrs. Buller, rummaging in her pocket for a clean handkerchief. “I’m sure I never should forget it, if I lived a thousand years. I never seemed able to realize that they were gone; it was all so sudden.”
The old lady made no answer, and we all wept in silence.
Aunt Theresa was the first to recover herself, and she insisted on our coming down-stairs. A young regimental surgeon and his wife dropped in to lunch, for which my great-grandmother stayed. We were sitting in the drawing-room afterwards, when “Mrs. Vandaleur’s carriage” was announced. As my great-grandmother took leave of me, she took off a watch and chain and hung them on my neck. It was a small French watch with an enamelled back of dark blue, on which was the word “Souvenir” in small pearls.
“I gave it to your grandfather long years ago, my child, and he gave it back to me—before he sailed. I would only part with it to his son’s child. Farewell, petite! Be good, dear child—try to be good. Adieu, Mrs. Buller, and a thousand thanks! Major Buller, I am at your service.”