She remembered again—it had been so forgotten—the day Grandmamma died. Gran’papa had sat all the morning in the dining-room, instead of in his room, which made it strange enough. Gran’papa—cold, aloof Gran’papa—had been stranger still. He had sat bowed over the fire, with his big silk handkerchief in his hand. With a sort of horror Laura had watched him, had seen that he was crying. He had looked up at her then and had said—she remembered his voice and his words—“Forty years—forty years—” over and over again. And then kindly, as if he knew she were frightened—“You’ve never seen a man cry, have you, child?” And Aunt Adela had said “Papa!” in a queer, warning voice. That was all she remembered. But the words would not leave her as she rubbed the shining chair legs and pounded ostentatiously up and down the key-board, to assure Aunt Adela, if Aunt Adela should be on the alert, that she was dusting properly. “A man”—not “Your grandfather.”... “A man”.... “My wife”.... So Gran’papa thought of himself as a man still.... He was a man.... The years they had passed on earth, eighteen or eighty, could alter their bodies, but not their souls.... Gran’papa’s soul—if she win through this barrier of his old and dying body to it—was as young as hers.... And hers as old as his.... A soul hadn’t any age ... or reckoned its age, not by years, but by wisdom, more or less, that its years had taught it.... And so—why shouldn’t they talk to each other? Gran’papa might help her.... She might ease Gran’papa.... For so long he had had no one to whom to tell his thoughts.... She would come up thoughtfully after her housework to spend the hour before lunch with him, to listen or to share his silence and to talk to him sometimes in her turn, jerkily, by fits and starts. She never knew how much he heard. And then one day, quite suddenly, he took out his big pocket-book and showed her, wrapped in tissue, a strand of hair, a long coil that shone like old gold in the winter sunshine. “She had beautiful hair,” said Gran’papa. Laura let it shower through her fingers. It was as soft and fine as her own. But Grandmamma’s hair—she could just remember—had been silver, not gold.... Queer.... Life was queer.... She watched him coil and fold and put away again the golden hair. “Was Grandmamma—? Did Grandmamma—? Did you and Grandmamma—ever get angry with each other?” she asked him abruptly. Gran’papa was staring at the fire. She knew by the turn of his head that he had heard her, but he made no answer. They were silent for a time, each seeing what they chose in the red and black grotesques of the coal. “She had the gentlest face,” said Gran’papa at last, his lips scarcely moving. “Serene. Patient. But I have known her—firm.” Laura nodded softly. “He is, too——” There was a shadow of a smile on Gran’papa’s face, the smile we keep for our thoughts and our ghosts. “It never lasted long,” said Gran’papa. “Only once—before I married her.” He was silent again.