"From John," she said, "good fellow;" and then she laid it on the
mantel-shelf of the parlor, while she busied herself in arranging her
flowers.

[Illustration: "From John, good fellow."]

"I must get these into water, or they will wilt," she said.

The large parlor was like many that you and I have seen in a certain
respectable class of houses,--wide, cool, shady, and with a mellow
_old_ tone to every thing in its furniture and belongings. It was
a parlor of the past, and not of to-day, yet exquisitely neat and
well-kept. The Turkey carpet was faded: it had been part of the
wedding furnishing of Grace's mother, years ago. The great, wide,
motherly, chintz-covered sofa, which filled a recess commanding the
window, was as different as possible from any smart modern article of
the name. The heavy, claw-footed, mahogany chairs; the tall clock
that ticked in one corner; the footstools and ottomans in faded
embroidery,--all spoke of days past. So did the portraits on the wall.
One was of a fair, rosy young girl, in a white gown, with powdered
hair dressed high over a cushion. It was the portrait of Grace's
mother. Another was that of a minister in gown and bands, with
black-silk gloved hands holding up conspicuously a large Bible. This
was the remote ancestor, the minister. Then there was the picture of
John's father, placed lovingly where the eyes seemed always to be
following the slight, white-robed figure of the young wife. The walls
were papered with an old-fashioned paper of a peculiar pattern, bought
in France seventy-five years before. The vases of India-china that
adorned the mantels, the framed engravings of architecture and
pictures in Rome, all were memorials of the taste of those long passed