"Now, no dawdling; set down and be quick about it--sup up your porridge without letting a drop of it get on your clean pinafores, or I'll smack you." Grannie never did smack the children, so this last remark of hers had long fallen flat. Alison came in almost immediately after the children, and then, after a longer interval, Harry, looking red and sleepy, took his place by the table. Harry was undoubtedly the black sheep of the family. Both Alison and David bestowed on him one or two anxious glances, but Grannie was too absorbed in some other thought to take much notice of him this morning. Immediately after breakfast the children knelt down, and Grannie repeated the Lord's Prayer aloud. Then came a great scampering and rushing about. "Good-by, Grannie--good-by, Ally," came from several pairs of lips. Then a clatter downstairs, then a silence--even David had gone away. On ordinary occasions Alison would have departed quite an hour before the children, as she always had to be at the shop in good time to display her excellent taste in the dressing of the windows. To-day she and Grannie were left behind together. "You don't look well, Grannie," began the young girl. "Now, listen, Alison," said Mrs. Reed, speaking in quite a tart voice, "ef you want to really vex me, you'll talk of my looks. I'm at the slack time o' life, and a little more color or a little less don't matter in the least. Ef I were forty and looked pale, or eighty and looked pale, it might be a subject to worry 'em as love me; being sixty-eight, I have let off pressure, so to speak, and it don't matter, not one little bit, whether I'm like a fresh apple or a piece o' dough. I am goin' out marketing now, and when I come back I'll give you a fresh lesson in that feather-stitching." A dismayed look crept into Alison's face; she raised her delicate brows very slightly, and fixed her clear blue eyes on Grannie. She was about to speak, but something in the expression on Grannie's face kept her silent. "You clear up and have the place tidy against I come back," said the little woman. "You might make the beds, and set everything in apple-pie order, ef you've a mind to."