PICTURES OF DOMESTIC LIFE.

"ONLY GRANDMAMMA.”

HAPPY is the family of children who have a grandmamma of their own! -a real kind, smiling, old-fashioned grandmamma, of whom nobody is afraid, who yet looks every now and then as if the tears could start to her eyes as readily as the smiles round her mouth; who is just sufficiently pensive in her more silent moods to make the young folks wonder what strange things she can be thinking of; but so serene even when she is not actually cheerful, that it is clear she is using aright what has been beautifully called, "the season of repose between the hurry and the end of life."

Let me think of one I remember, and tell you all about her.

I do not know how many years she had lived in the world when I first remember her, but she always seemed to me immensely old. Perhaps, though, that was because she was such a contrast to our young mother, and used to talk about our father having once been a little baby on her knee, which one felt sure must have been in the time of Abraham or Isaac, or somewhere thereabouts. Besides which she was so comfortably stout, and wore such a complicated cap, with rows of lace on it, and long ribbons hanging from it, and such a beautiful chain and eye-glass, and such a soft silk gown that it must have taken ever so long-yes, really ever so long, and there's no knowing how long that is-to get into such a condition. Mamma was altogether different; slight and small, so that it was just possible to believe her to be a sort of larger and older self. But grandmamma was beyond all calculation in every possible way; for although one believed her to be so immensely old, one had an unaccountable feeling that she was, in a great many respects, a child like ourselves.

How odd that was! But I suspect children always feel the same about the sort of grandmamma I am talking of. What is the reason of this I don't know, but I do know that we always claimed grandmamma for our own as soon as she came into the house; rushed down-stairs at once to see her, as a matter of course, because we knew we should hear her calling out "Where are the children?" directly; or if it was our bed-time before she arrived, kept ourselves awake by pinching and whispering, that we might be ready for a good shout when she came to the nursery to look at us, as we knew she was very sure to do.

What nights those were! And the final pressure of the hand on cach little head, and the blessing spoken with it-of which, child-like,

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we thought but little at the time-how it comes back upon one now; now that one has to beg the blessing for oneself!

But I do not wish to be too grave. Enough that we felt grandmamma to be the most curious mixture of com-rogue and adviser possible. At one moment she seemed almost awful from finding out every thing we were thinking and wanting, without being told; at the next she was backing us up in our nursery romps, turning out the nurse that we all might be together by ourselves, and have everything our own way; giving up her drive with mamma to come and play with us, as it were a child among children. Afraid of her? The thing was impossible! And yet our respect, if we could have defined it, was unbounded. A mysterious superiority hung around her, even when most our playfellow; and it seemed almost impossible to be naughty when she was there. But if we were; if we would be unruly in spite of her, and get into those terrible scrapes she disliked so much, still there she was the same as ever, still one of ourselves, only a better self, to comfort and bring us right, as it were a child comforting a child.

Ah! I feel myself in her arms yet, my hands clutching as far round her waist as I could get, my face pressed against her side; angry passions in my heart, sobs bursting from my throat, she whispering above my head, "Hush, little child, hush; grandmamma knows all about it; you think people cruel and hard; I used to think so too when I was naughty and cried like you. But everybody loves you still, quite as much as I do." Here a struggle announced my disbelief, and then I heard the clear, steady words, "Even more. There! Hush, little child, and I will tell you a grand secret I found out at last. Come, lift up, and you shall hear. It is the secret of how to get out of a scrape. Such a simple, easy little secret after all! It was to believe I had been naughty myself, but that I had only to own it, and be forgiven. Ah! more tears?-tears over grandmamma's secret? Never mind, then; but sit up, and I will tell you where it comes from—”

I cannot go on!

"I will arise and go

to my

Everybody knows where those words come from, father." And how sweet it is to be persuaded of the love that is so glad to forgive even great sins; how much more such little faults as a child can be guilty of!

And now I will tell you what we used to call her- for it got to be a name with papa and mamma as well as with us; but it was we who invented it. We called her " Only Grandmamma!" By which we did not mean that that she was a Mrs. Nobody, as people say it's "only so and so," when they mean something insignificant and trifling. No; we called her "Only Grandmamma" because she was just the one person in the world of whom we could not be afraid, who could never catch us at a wrong moment; to whom we ran with our quarrels and troubles as readily as with our joys and fun.

I think we had called her " Only Grandmamma" for a long time before anybody remarked it, but it was noticed at last, and thus:

One of her visits was always paid at Christmas time; and never a year passed without her bringing a present for each of us. And these were regularly distributed on Christmas Eve. On that day, when we came down-stairs after dinner, we were sure to find our little chairs set in a row, and a parcel laid in each, and the joke went round that there were no chairs for us to-day, as they were all occupied. On which came the pleasure of finding, each our own particular parcel, with a very plainly written direction outside, and a bit of the toy or whatever the present might be, peeping through the paper at top. I remember a fine large fur donkey's head appearing once, with the name of one of my brothers written below, to his mingled confusion and delight.

Well, one Christmas, having a young friend or two with us, to whom we had, in the hilarity of our hearts, confided grandmamma's custom, and a heavy fall of snow preventing our being out of doors, it came into our heads to dress up a bolster for grandmamma, and act up-stairs, as a joke, the scene we hoped to see acted down-stairs in earnest that very evening. One of our friends made a large paper face, and by dint of petticoats and some acting dresses we cooked up a very stout, armless grandmamma, with a portentous cap on her head, placed her in a chair in front of the table, hung a pasteboard eye-glass round her neck, and pinned a huge ticket on her chest, inscribed, "Only Grandmamma!" for the phrase came natural to us, though we had not thought about it. Then we fetched the rest of the chairs, put them in a row, and laid something in cach, wrapped up in newspaper, and ticketed with our names in succession.

There was not much fun in the play, yet it made us shout with laughter from the oddity of our impromptu presents. The fire-irons made three, the soap-dish another, nurse's old lead pincushion a fifth, a large cinder a sixth, and so on. And when the chairs were all filled, we walked round in procession, pretending to be just entering the room, while one of the boys knelt down behind the bolster to make a speech for grandmamma.

Somehow or other we must have had a twinge of misgiving over this mimicry, for we set one little brother to watch the door and prevent any one coming in if possible. He had orders to beg that we might be left to ourselves a little longer.

And presently, just in the middle of a much duller speech than the real grandmamma ever made in her life, steps were heard along the passage, and some one touched the handle of the door.

Our little watchman stood firm. "Please don't come in. Please go away till we've finished our game!" cried he; but, at the same time peeping through the empty keyhole to see who it was (as he told us