She was stout ... sparse-haired ... wore a switch ... had kindly,
confiding, blue eyes.

Beggars, tramps, pack-peddlers, book-agents, fortune-tellers,--she lent
a credulous ear to all,--helped others when we ourselves needed help,
signed up for preposterous articles on "easy" monthly payments,--gave
away food, starving her appetite and ours.

When, child though I was, even I protested, she would say, "well,
Johnnie, you might be a tramp some day, and how would I feel if I
thought some one was turning you away hungry?"

* * * * *

My Grandfather Gregory was a little, alert, erect, suave man,--he was a
man whose nature was such that he would rather gain a dollar by some
cheeky, brazen, off-colour practice than earn a hundred by honest
methods.

He had keen grey eyes that looked you in the face in utter, disarming
frankness. He was always immaculately dressed. He talked continually
about money, and about how people abused his confidence and his trust in
men. But there was a sharpness like pointed needles in the pupils of his
eyes that betrayed his true nature.

Coming to Mornington as one of the city's pioneers, at first he had kept
neck to neck in social prestige with the Babsons, Guelders, and the
rest, and had built the big house that my grandmother, my aunt, and
myself now lived in, on Mansion avenue....