“Met your other grandfather!” Mrs. Hampden looked mystified.
“He says he is my grandfather, and he looks like papa. I reckon he 's my other grandfather. He ran against me in the street and knocked me down, and then came home with me.”
“Came home with you!” repeated Mrs. Hampden, still in a maze, and with a vague trouble dawning in her face.
“Yes 'm.”
Oliver went over the meeting again.
His mother's face meantime showed the tumult of emotion that was sweeping over her. Why had General Hampden come? What had he come for? To try and take her boy from her?
At the thought her face and form took on something of the lioness that guards her whelp. Then as the little boy repeated what his grandfather had said of his reason for coming home with him, her face softened again. She heard a voice saying, “If he ever sues for pardon, be merciful to him for my sake.” She remembered what day it was: the Eve of the day of Peace and Good-will toward all men. He must have come for Peace, and Peace it should be. She would not bring up her boy under the shadow of that feud which had blighted both sides of his race so long.
“Oliver,” she said, “you must go down and let him in. Say I will come down.”
“I will not like him,” said the child, his eyes on her face.
“Oh, yes, you must; he is your grandfather.”