But for disinterestedness, never mind mammie: give me grannie's love. God ought to spare grandmammas; they never ought to die, the dear, lovely grannies!
'Haven't you a grandma?' once asked a little boy of another. 'No? Well, you should get one!' True, no child should be without one.
Victor Hugo said he submitted to one tyranny only, that of children. The author of 'The Art of being Grandfather' was right: that tyranny ought not only to be submitted to, but proclaimed. And who better than a grandmother will submit to the tyranny of a child? The sacrifices they will be capable of are superhuman, epic. I know one who charms away the last days of her life by a dainty little supper of biscuit and cream-cheese brought to her every day. She never now comes down in the evening, and that frugal repast is taken up to her when dinner is about over.
Her little granddaughter once came up to her room crying bitterly. She was in disgrace, and had been sent away from table before the appearance of the pudding.
'Grannie,' she said, 'I am not to have any pudding; you ought not to have your cream-cheese.'
'But, darling,' pleaded grandmamma, throwing a loving glance at the little dish of her predilection, 'I haven't been naughty.'
'Never mind; you ought not to have any when your little girl cannot have any pudding.' And the little tyrant cried more bitterly than ever.
Grannie rang the bell, ordered the favourite cream-cheese to be taken away, and, drying the little girl's tears, supped that night off a bit of bread-and-butter.
Antiquity has not recorded anything like it.
People say that mothers are prejudiced in favour of their children. Of course they are. We are all of us prejudiced in favour of what belongs to us, especially if it is of our own manufacture. But for the opinion held of a child, give me grannie's—that is sublime.