"I shouldn't wonder if a time of ease and idleness was one of the sharpest temptations God ever sends," grannie said quietly. Father said, "Now, mother!" in a protesting sort of way. "I shouldn't," she said, quite firm, and looking him in the face. "Satan has a deal better chance with idle folks than with busy ones, Miles." "Ah, so you've told me many a time," said father. "And maybe you're right. I don't say but what you are. I'm not an idle sort of fellow myself, by any manner of means. But I don't say I wouldn't like more ease. And as for calling pleasure and riches and that sort, temptation, I don't see it—I don't really see it." "No," said grannie. "There's many a thing a man can't see, till God gives him sight." "And you think you've longer sight than me, mother?" says he. She looked up, with a smile which I thought quite beautiful—looked up, not at him, nor at the trees, but away and above and beyond, as it were. "Yes," she said; "I've longer sight than you, my dear. I've sight to see up and up into heaven itself, and you haven't. It makes a deal of difference." "Bless me, mother, don't talk like that," says father, in a sort of hurry. "It sounds as if you was going to die this very night." "And if I was, I'm ready," said she. "It wouldn't be grief to me to hear the chariot wheels coming near." But I was sitting close by, and I turned and said, "Grannie, please don't want to go just yet." "No," she said, "I'm willing to wait." "Well, you go beyond common folks, somehow," father said. "There ain't many that care to talk about dying as cool as you do." "No," she said. "And I couldn't either, if death was to me what it is to many a one, a plunge into the outer darkness, away from the smile of God. That would be awful." "Well, well, we needn't talk about it now," father said, fidgeting. "You're the best woman that ever lived, though you don't think yourself so. But all the world can't be like you." And he got up, and hummed a tune, and plucked a bit of sweet-william, and walked about; so grannie could not say any more. The next morning broke like other mornings, and we began the day as usual. Father went to his work, and Asaph to school, which he was nearly done with. This was washing morning, so I was very busy. Mother said her tooth ached still, and she did not seem to think she could do anything. Pain always upset her, and she cried over it half the morning, and went out in the garden and chatted with Mrs. Dickenson most of the other half. Mrs. Dickenson was our left-hand neighbour, a cleanly thrifty sort of body, but a great talker. She never could resist a gossip, though she worked hard between whiles. Grannie did not like her very much. She had only one child.