My grandmother lies farther back, a fainter picture in that world of unsatisfactory grown-up people. While she lived, her favourite present to each of her granddaughters was either a grey or green silk dress, with a poky bonnet and ribbons to match. In the grey we must have looked like little Quakeresses, and in the green like a gathering of the "gentle people" out of the moonlit woods, our proper dominion. Her I remember indistinctly as a thin-lipped, unpleasant-looking woman, who had a fixed opinion that children must either be "saucy" or "bold." I was bold, because I was always too frightened of her to say anything, saucy or meek. She used to lie in bed or on the parlour sofa, sipping egg-flip and reading religious books. She was very devout; but her religion, I suspect, served neither to brighten her own nor any one else's life. It had a sombre, vinegary aspect, more concerned with punishment due than pleasure merited, more attuned to severity than Christian mildness. By some unaccountable process she melted out of my existence, having darkened it for some months, from which I infer that her death passed unnoted by me or was not explained to me. I did not see her dead, and can record no gentle deed of hers living. She never kissed me, but sometimes shook my hand in a loose gentlemanly fashion, and exhorted me not to be so "bold." Once she nearly broke my heart. The cook had made some damson jam, and while I was alone in the parlour turning over the leaves of one of grandpapa's music-books, which looked so mysteriously wonderful to me, she carried in a specimen bowl, and left it on the table with some loose coppers. I still see that bowl. It was white, and had a wreath of pink roses. When I tired of my music-book, I wandered by a natural impulse into temptation. The bowl was out of my reach, but I soon remedied that by drawing over a chair and climbing upon it. I dipped my finger into the bowl, and then put it into my mouth. It tasted, as indeed I fully anticipated, good. You may imagine the alacrity with which I continued the operation, without any heed of the blotches of jam that dropped upon the table. Both the hall-door and parlour-door were open, and I heard loud sobbing. I was acquainted with sorrow myself, which was a reason I never heard a child's cry unmoved. I slipped off my chair, and ran out into the hall. A ragged little follow sat on the doorstep, crying as if his heart would burst. I raced down the steps, and sat by his side to comfort him. He had cut his foot, and I asked him if it would not hurt less if he had some apples to eat. Crab-apples always soothed my own immeasurable woes and lightened the pangs of solitude for me. The weeping boy looked at me sullenly, and nodded. In I flew again and came out with the coppers grasped in my jammy palm, and holding the bowl of damson jam tightly wedged between my pinafore and both hands.