“What is this?” said Grandfather. “I heard loud and angry words. Who is this, my dear?” “This is Manuel, Grandfather; my friend of whom I told you. He is angry because I am married to you!” said Grandmother simply; “but I am always so thankful to you, Grandfather dear!” Grandfather looked kindly at the boy. “I see!” he said. “Yes, yes; I see! I see! But come into the house with us, sir, and let us try to be friends. Sorrow in youth is hard to bear, yet it can be borne, it can be borne, and we will help you if we may.” And Grandmother said, “Yes, sure, Manuel dear; come in and eat with us; you must be hungry.” A great sob burst from the boy’s throat, and turning away he flung his arm upon the vine-covered wall and wept there. “Go you into the house, my dear,” said Grandfather; “and be getting supper. We will come presently.” Grandmother looked at him for a moment; then she took his hand and put it to her heart, with a pretty gesture, looking into his face with clear patient eyes; he laid his other hand on her head, and they stood so for a moment quietly, with no words; then she went into the house. And by and by Grandfather brought Manuel in to supper, and Rachel was wonderfully civil, and they were all quite cheerful together. Manuel stayed, as we all know, and worked for Grandfather on the farm, and boarded with the Widow Peace across the way; and he and Grandfather were great friends, and he and Rachel quarrelled and made up and quarrelled again, over and over; and always from that time there was a little line on Grandmother’s smooth forehead. CHAPTER III HOW SHE PLAYED WITH THE CHILDREN I ASKED Anne Peace once, when we were talking about Grandmother (it was not till the next year that we came to the village), how soon it was that the children found her out. Very soon, Anne said. It began with their trying to tease her by shouting “Grandmother!” over the wall and running away. She caught one of them and carried him into the garden screaming and kicking (she was strong, for all her slenderness), and soon she had him down in the grass listening to a story, eyes and mouth wide open, and all the rest of them hanging over the wall among the grapevines, “trying so hard to hear you could ’most see their ears grow!” said Anne, laughing. “It was wonderful the way she had with them. I used to wish she would keep a school, after she was left alone, but I don’t know; maybe she couldn’t have taught them so much in the book way; but where she learned all the things she did tell ’em—it passes me. I used to ask her: ’Grandmother,’ I’d say, ’where do you get it all?’ And she’d laugh her pretty way, and say: “‘Eye and ear, See and hear; Look and listen well, my dear!’ That was all there was to it, she’d say, but we knew better.”