There was something restful in the sight of such a lovely specimen of old age. Katy realized, as she looked at her, what a loss it had been to her own life that she had never known either of her grandparents. She sat and gazed at old Mrs. Redding with a mixture of regret and fascination. She longed to hold her hand, and kiss her, and play with her beautiful silvery hair, as Rose did. Rose was evidently the old lady's peculiar darling. They were on the most intimate terms; and Rose dimpled and twinkled, and made saucy speeches, and told all her little adventures and the baby's achievements, and made jests, and talked nonsense as freely as to a person of her own age. It was a delightful relation. "Grandmamma has taken a fancy to you, I can see," she told Katy, as they drove back to Longwood. "She always wants to know my friends; and she has her own opinions about them, I can tell you." "Do you really think she liked me?" said Katy, warmly. "I am so glad if she did, for I _loved_ her. I never saw a really beautiful old person before." "Oh, there's nobody like her," rejoined Rose. "I can't imagine what it would be not to have her." Her merry little face was quite sad and serious as she spoke. "I wish she were not so old," she added with a sigh. "If we could only put her back twenty years! Then, perhaps, she would live as long as I do." But, alas! there is no putting back the hands on the dial of time, no matter how much we may desire it. The second day of Katy's visit was devoted to the luncheon-party of which Rose had written in her letter, and which was meant to be a reunion or "side chapter" of the S.S.U.C. Rose had asked every old Hillsover girl who was within reach. There was Mary Silver, of course, and Esther Dearborn, both of whom lived in Boston; and by good luck Alice Gibbons happened to be making Esther a visit, and Ellen Gray came in from Waltham, where her father had recently been settled over a parish, so that all together they made six of the original nine of the society; and Quaker Row itself never heard a merrier confusion of tongues than resounded through Rose's pretty parlor for the first hour after the arrival of the guests. There was everybody to ask after, and everything to tell. The girls all seemed wonderfully unchanged to Katy, but they professed to find her very grown up and dignified. "I wonder if I am," she said. "Clover never told me so. But perhaps she has grown dignified too." "Nonsense!" cried Rose; "Clover could no more be dignified than my baby could. Mary Silver, give me that child this moment! I never saw such a greedy thing as you are; you have kept her to yourself at least a quarter of an hour, and it isn't fair." "Oh, I beg your pardon," said Mary, laughing and covering her mouth with her hand exactly in her old, shy, half-frightened way. "We only need Mrs. Nipson to make our little party complete," went on Rose, "or dear Miss Jane! What has become of Miss Jane, by the way? Do any of you know?"