Then there was Great-grandfather Ward, Julia’s grandfather, who had the cradle and the great round spectacles. Doubtless he had many other things besides, for he was a substantial New York merchant; but the cradle and the spectacles are the only possessions of his that I have seen. I have the cradle now, and I can testify that Great-grandfather Ward (for I believe he was rocked in it, as his descendants for four generations since have been) must have been an extremely long baby. It is a fine old affair, of solid mahogany, and was evidently built to last as long as the Wards should last. Not so very long ago, two dear people who had been rocked together in that cradle fifty--or is it sixty?--years ago, sat down and clasped hands over it, and wept for pure love and tenderness and _léal souvenir_. Not less pleasant is its present use as the good ship “Pinafore,” when six rosy, shouting children tumble into it and rock violently, singing with might and main,-- “We sail the ocean blue, And our saucy ship’s a beauty!” That is all about the cradle. My mother writes thus of Great-grandfather Ward, her own grandfather:-- “He had been a lieutenant-colonel in the war of American Independence. A letter from the Commander-in-Chief to Governor Samuel Ward (of Rhode Island) mentions a visit from “your son, a tall young man of soldierly aspect.” I cannot quote the exact words. My grandfather had seen service in Arnold’s march through ‘the wilderness’ to Quebec. He was present at the battle of Red Bank. After the close of the war he engaged in commercial pursuits, and made a voyage to India as supercargo of a merchant vessel belonging to Moses Brown, of Providence. He was in Paris at the time of the king’s death (Louis XVI.), and for some time before that tragic event. He speaks in his journal of having met several of the leading revolutionists of that time at a friend’s house, and characterizes them as ‘exceeding plain men, but very zealous.’ He passed the day of the king’s execution, which he calls ‘one of horror,’ in Versailles, and was grieved at the conduct of several [Illustration: LIEUT.-COL. SAMUEL WARD. Born Nov 17, 1756 Died Aug. 16, 1832.] Americans, who not only remained in town, but also attended the execution. When he finally left Paris, a proscribed nobleman, disguised as a footman, accompanied the carriage, and so cheated the guillotine of one expected victim. “Colonel Ward, as my grandfather was always called, was a graduate of Brown University, and a man of scholarly tastes. He possessed a diamond edition of Latin classics, which always went with him in his campaigns, and which is still preserved in the family. In matters of art he was not so well posted. Of the pictures in the gallery of the Luxembourg he remarks in his diary: ‘The old pictures are considered the best. I cannot think why.’