One Sunday afternoon grannie and I were sitting together, having our tea. The other three had been to dinner with the Raikes', and were not back yet: so we were afraid there must be some sort of Sunday excursion as well as dinner. Grannie and I had been having a nice quiet afternoon together, and grannie seemed tired, so I got the tea for her earlier than usual, and we had the kettle boiling in good time. "If they don't come soon, they won't be in time for Church," I said. "Not for the first time," grannie answered, and she spoke in a sad sort of way. "I'm sore afraid of its being a habit that will grow. It's wonderful how anything of a bad habit does grow. Just let it alone like a weed, and it's sure to sprout. I suppose good habits go against the grain, for they do take a deal of tending." "But father was brought up to Church-going," I said. "Yes, yes, he was brought up to it. There wasn't anything a-wanting in the bringing-up, so far as I know. But though a mother's bringing-up can do a lot, it can't put God's grace into a man's heart. It can't do that." "Father always used to like so much to go to Church," I said. "He liked to please his old mother, Phœbe," said she. "That's what it was—not so much of liking the worship of God for its own sake. I'd sooner it had been that—more hope of its lasting, if it had. But the pleasing of his old mother isn't so much to him now. He's got little thought or care save for his five thousand pounds—which mayn't ever be his really neither." "Do you think it won't come to us, grannie?" I asked, and I couldn't help longing that it might. "I don't think either way," said she. "It may or it mayn't. I've no manner of means of knowing whether Andrew Morison was in his right senses or no. If it does come it'll be a solemn trust from God; and I'm sorely afraid lest it should be squandered away with no thought at all of Him in the spending." "Mother was talking again yesterday about going into a bigger house," I said. "She does want it so, grannie; and father is quite set on five hundred a year, and not only two hundred." "Well, you nor I can't check him," she said. "But this cottage is mine, and it shan't be sold while I live. If they go, I'll stay on here and work for myself. It's little I should want. I'm too old for settling into a new home at my time of life. I've been thirty years and more here, and please God I'll stay till I die." "O grannie! I hope if they go they'll let me live with you," I said. "No," she answered, "that isn't likely. They'll want you to work for them—without they're going to set up grand, and have servants like gentlefolks. I'd believe in pretty near any sort of folly. But, there—I'm forgetting—that's no sort of manner to speak in to you about them. You're but a child, and you've got to do as you are told."