"I'd like to be a crazy Jane," Flossy said reflectively. "I wonder what they eat? Grandmother, did you bring those old-fashioned things with you? We are counting on them for our play. So saying, I gracefully fling myself into a chair. I think I could wear your dresses, grandmother." "I brought them," the old lady answered with a twinkle in her eye. "Though I fear 'tis encouraging thee in vain and frivolous follies." "If we don't go into vain and frivolous follies until you encourage them," Patty cried, "we may live to grow as solemn as Bathalina herself." "It seems to me," Flossy put in, "that Mademoiselle Clemens has a dreadful 'hark-from-the-tombs-a-doleful-sound' air this morning." "Why"--her cousin began, as there flashed through her mind the remembrance of the interview she had interrupted on the previous night. Her own troubles had until now driven it out of her mind. "Well, what?" Flossy asked. "Nothing. Let's look at the dresses now. Can't Flossy get them, grandmother?" The costumes were produced in a hair-covered trunk which Flossy and Mrs. Sanford with some difficulty dragged into the sitting-room. When it was opened, a delightful odor of lavender and camphor and sweet-grass was diffused through the air; which grew more and more pungent as from the trunk were taken delicious old gowns of Canton crape, broidered kerchiefs, caps, and hand-bags. "That corn-colored crape is just the thing for me," Patty cried. "Isn't it lovely! Oh, you vain old grandmother! you are as gray as a sparrow now, but you used to go arrayed in purple and fine linen." "I was not weaned from the worldliness of fine dress then," the old lady said, smiling. "And they did say," she added, smoothing her dove-gray dress with innocent complacency, "that I was not uncomely in those days." "You are the handsomest mother in the State now," said Dr. Sanford, who had entered. "Patty, what is that bundle of papers?" A packet of papers yellowed by age lay in the bottom of the trunk, and Patty took them up. "Some of the letters grandmother had in her philandering days, I suppose. Shall I open them, grandmother?" "Give them to me. Thee art a sad, giddy girl, grand-daughter.--They are old papers of thy father's, Charles. I haven't seen them this forty years for aught I know." "Let me see them, mother," Dr. Sanford said. "This is father's land-grant for serving in the war of 1812." "I never knew grandfather was in the war of 1812," said Patty. "Was he wounded?" "Wounded," repeated grandmother Sanford, laughing. "There came a report that the British were coming to Quinnebasset where he lived, and a company of men was raised. They went down to Edgecomb, and had a camp for four or five weeks, and then came home again." "'The king of France, with forty thousand men, Marched up a hill, and then marched down again,'" quoted Dr. Sanford. "But, grandmother," Flossy said, "you must have been awfully frightened to have him in danger."