"Yes," was the slowly given monosyllable; and then grandma, who had been energetic all her life, added, "but, child, think how pretty they are." At these words Maud made a dive into her apple-green silk work-bag, as if on business bent, and rapidly drew out needle, thread, scissors, and thimble. While she was threading her needle, grandma said, "Really, I can't wait any longer, child; let me hear all about it." "That's a dear. I thought you'd be dying to know. You'll admit I understand something about your inquisitiveness," and then Maud's laughing baby-blue eyes were lifted lovingly towards her grandmother's face. "Well, while you were away off West visiting Aunt Maria, I gave Charles Lamb's party." "Charles Lamb! Well, I'll believe you're the crazy one now, for he's been dead many a year." "Oh, grandma," and Maud laughingly shook her head, "you are funny! Didn't I tell you that Edith Worster is a member of the Cozy Club? And they are all owlish sort of people--the owl is the bird of wisdom, you know. Well, while you were gone she came to call on me, and I'm sixteen and she's twenty-three." "What of that?" "Oh, she's seven years older than I am, and awfully wise, and I didn't know what to say to her exactly; and so, as I've been told to entertain people by asking them questions about themselves, I asked Edith what the Club was reading now. 'Charles Lamb,' and then you should have seen her face change; it was so eager, and looked so full of joy as I thought it had before looked full of misery. I'm sure her call on me was a duty one, one of the good-child kind, and then she asked me if I--_I_ remember"--and Maud stretched her left arm out at full length, and, raising the index-finger, pointed to herself--"had lately read the essay of Elia, entitled, 'Rejoicings Upon the New Year's Coming of Age!' "I shrunk into almost nothingness before her, no doubt, when I impulsively answered, 'Oh my, no! I don't even know who Elia is--any relation to Elias?' and then I laughed. "But, grandma, she was awfully nice. She wasn't the least bit proud and horrid, hadn't any of that drawn-up lofty air some people would have put on, and she explained all about it, and told me Elia was the name Charles Lamb sometimes used for himself, and she made me so interested in him, telling me of his love for his sister Mary and his father, and that in writing to the poet Coleridge, who was Charles Lamb's greatest friend, he told him, 'I am wedded to the fortunes of my sister and my poor old father.' Did you know, grandma, Mary Lamb was out of her mind at times? Oh, it was such a grief to her brother!