"I am Elizabeth Bailey," said the girl quietly, as if she would break a
piece of hard news gently. "My father was your son John."

"The idea!" said the new grandmother, and promptly fell back upon her
pillows with her hand upon her heart. "John, John, my little John. No one
has mentioned his name to me for years and years. He never writes to me."
She put up a lace-trimmed handkerchief, and sobbed.

"Father died five years ago," said Elizabeth.

"You wicked girl!" said the maid. "Can't you see that Madam can't bear
such talk? Go right out of the room!" The maid rushed up with
smelling-salts and a glass of water, and Elizabeth in distress came and
stood by the bed.

"I'm sorry I made you feel bad, grandmother," she said when she saw that
the fragile, childish creature on the bed was recovering somewhat.

"What right have you to call me that? Grandmother, indeed! I'm not so old
as that. Besides, how do I know you belong to me? If John is dead, your
mother better look after you. I'm sure I'm not responsible for you. It's
her business. She wheedled John away from his home, and carried him off to
that awful West, and never let him write to me. She has done it all, and
now she may bear the consequences. I suppose she has sent you here to beg,
but she has made a mistake. I shall not have a thing to do with her of her
children."

"Grandmother!" Elizabeth's eyes flashed as they had done to the other
grandmother a few hours before. "You must not talk so. I won't hear it. I
wouldn't let Grandmother Brady talk about my father, and you can't talk so