My grandmother was one of the old school. She was a fine, portly built old lady, with a smart laced cap. She hated snuff and spectacles, and never lost her scissors, because she always kept them fastened to her side by a silver chain. As for scandal she never indulged in its use, believing, as she said, that truth was stranger than fiction and twice as cutting. My grandmother had a penchant for old times and old things, she delighted to dwell upon the history of the past, and once a year on the day of thanksgiving and prayer, she appeared in all the glories of a departed age. Her head bore an enormous cushion—her waist was doubly fortified with a stomacher of whale-bone and brocade. Her skirt spread out its ample folds of brocade and embroidery below, flanked by two enormous pockets. Her well-turned ankles were covered with blue worsted stockings, with scarlet clocks, and her underpinning was completed by a pair of high quartered russet shoes mounted upon a couple of extravagant red heels. When the hour for service drew near, she added a high bonnet of antique form, made of black satin, and a long red cloak of narrow dimensions. Thus clothed, as she ascended the long slope that led to the old Presbyterian meeting house, she appeared like a British grenadier with his arms shot off, going to the pay office for his pension. Her memory improved by age, for she doubtless recollected some things which never happened, and her powers of description were equal to those of Sir Walter Scott’s old crone, whose wild legends awoke the master’s mind to a sense of its own high powers. My grandmother came through the revolution a buxom dame, and her legends of cow boys and tories, of white washed chimnies and tar and featherings, of battles by sea, and of “skrimmages,” as she termed them, by land, would have filled a volume as large as Fox’s book of the Martyrs, and made in the language of the day a far more _readable work_. I was her pet—her auditor: I knew when to smile, and when to look grave—when to approach her, and when to retire from her presence; her pocket was my paradise, and her old cup-board my seventh heaven. Many a red streaked apple and twisted doughnut have I munched from the former,—and many a Pisgah glimpse have I had of the bright pewter and brighter silver that garnished the latter. Among the old lady’s silver was a venerable massive tankard that had come down from the early settlers of Quinapiack, and she prized it far above many weightier and more useful vessels. This relic always attracted my notice—a coat of arms was pictured upon one side of it, and underneath it the family name in old English letters, stood out like letters upon an iron sign. It was of London manufacture, and must have been in use long before the Pilgrims sailed for Plymouth. It had, doubtless, been drained by cavaliers and roundheads in the sea girt isle, “Ere the May flower lay In the stormy bay, And rocked by a barren shore.”