However, this was by no means the worst of her troubles; behold, mamma declared that she could not go to the Thanksgiving dinner, but must stay at home with Susan and the cat. Now when you reflect that they were to ride four miles in a beautiful sleigh drawn by two prancing horses, and meet a baker’s dozen of little cousins, some of whom Nannie had never seen, to say nothing of the delights of the Thanksgiving dinner, and the little pies with their names on, done in sugar plums, which were to be ready for each cousin, I am sure you will feel with Nannie that her punishment was greater than she could bear. In truth, the others thought so. Papa said, “My dear, couldn’t you reconsider, somehow?” Aunt Laura said, “Jennie, I think you are horrid!” And even Susan ventured to say, “I don’t think she knew it was his best dress, ma’am; and she says Grandma can sew it together, poor little heart.” But Mrs. Walters was very firm. She did not deign to answer Laura or Susan, but said to her husband, “Richard, I don’t know how I can change, now. I said she couldn’t, and you know I ought to keep my word. Besides, the child needs a serious lesson; it is quite as hard for me, I think, as for her,” and the mother’s lip quivered a little. Then the father said soothingly, that of course he knew she was doing it for Nannie’s best good, and he could trust her judgment where he couldn’t his own. But Aunt Laura remained indignant, and the whole household was in trouble. “Our Thanksgiving is spoiled,” said Aunt Laura; “I’ve a good mind not to go.”
Meantime, Grandma said not a word. It was nearly an hour afterwards, and the preparations for starting, which had gone on much more silently, were almost completed, when Grandma opened the door of Mrs. Walters’ room, dressed in her best black silk, with her beautiful white satin hair peeping out from under the soft laces of her best cap, and holding by the hand a little girl with very red eyes, and a red nose, who kept up a suspicious little sniffing, as though it was only by great effort she refrained from bursting into fresh tears. Grandma walked straight toward her daughter, and said, “Mamma, we have come to ask you if you will not forgive poor little Nannie, who is very sorry, and let her go to-day, for Grandma’s sake—not for hers at all, but for Grandma’s.”
And the handsome mother, with a sudden glad light flashing in her gray eyes, stooped and kissed the cheek of her sweet old mother, and then of her own little daughter, as she said, “Dear mother, you know what you ask for your own sake I could certainly never refuse.”
The years have rolled on since then, enough of them to make little Nannie twenty-six, and the mother of one Rosamond, who has golden hair like the dollie, her namesake, but who is mischievous, as Rosamond of old never was. And I heard the sweet mother say, last Thanksgiving morning, after having told this story of her past for the benefit of some young mothers, “I am thankful for two things: that I had a mother who taught me that wrong-doing must bring unhappiness, not only to myself, but to others; and that I had a dear Grandmother who taught me what it was to have a powerful friend to come between me and Justice, and say, ‘For my sake.’“
Pansy.
PAPA’S CHOICE.
HERE stands my baby,
On two little feet;