Grandma didn't sleep well at night. She complained of this circumstantially and at length.
"Hour after hour I hear the clock strike," she said. "Hour after hour!"
Little Josephine had heard the clock strike hour after hour one terrible night when she had an earache. She was really sorry for Grandma.
"And nothing to take up my mind," said Grandma, as if her mind was a burden to her.
But the night after this she had something to take up her mind. As a matter of fact it woke her up, as she had napped between the clock's strikings. At first she thought the servants were in her room—and realized with a start that they were speaking of her.
"Why she must live with 'em I don't see—she has daughters of her own—"
With the interest of an eavesdropper she lay still, listening, and heard no good of herself.
"How long is it to Christmas?" she presently heard her grandchild ask, and beg her mother for the "party"—still denied her.
"Grandma spoils everything!" said the clear childish voice, and the mother's gentle one urged love and patience.
It was some time before the suddenly awakened old lady, in the dark, realized the source of these voices—and then she could not locate it.