"No, Aunt Kitty, I have not forgotten—I did not mean how cross, but how particular he is."
"I think you had better say nothing to spoil Jessie's enjoyment of a pleasant day. You would do no good by making her afraid to move. Mr. Dickinson would see quickly enough that she was not acting naturally, and would place no confidence in the continuance of such extreme cautiousness." Harriet still looked anxious, and I added, "I can trust Jessie without any cautions."
The evening was very still—so still, that, as we walked to Mr. Graham's, we could hear the grasshoppers jumping from our path, and the lowing of a cow in a field near us sounded so loud, that Harriet started as if it had been some strange noise. As we passed the garden we heard old Mrs. Graham's voice, and though the fence was too high for me to see them, I soon found that she and Jessie were walking just inside of it, and therefore near enough for us to hear what they said. Had they been talking of any thing which they might not have wished a stranger to hear, I would have spoken to them, but as this was not the case, and as I was interested in their conversation, I motioned to Harriet to keep quiet and listen to it.
"Ah, yes, Jessie, it is a pretty place—a very pretty place," said Mrs. Graham.
"But, grandmother," said Jessie, "there are a great many other places just as pretty."
"Maybe so, Jessie, maybe so, but there are none, child, we love so well."
"But when we get used to them, grandmother, we should get to love them, should we not?"
Mrs. Graham was silent for a minute or two, till Jessie said, "Say, grandmother, should we not?"
"I was thinking, my dear, and I do not think I could. You would, Jessie, for the hearts of young people like you are full of hope. You are always thinking of the pleasure you will have to-morrow, or the next week, or the next month, and every change, you think, will bring some enjoyment. But our hearts, Jessie, the hearts of the old, are full of what we remember of the pleasures we have had already, and which can never come back to us, and we love the old places best where we can look around and say to ourselves—'There I had a pleasant walk with such a dear friend; and, There I sat when I heard such a piece of good news; and so on.' Do you understand me, Jessie?"
"Yes, grandmother." After a while, Jessie said in a very low voice, so that I could just hear her, "Grandmother, did not grandfather live here?"