sweetness, and, through the open window behind, you see a quiet
landscape--a hill, a tree, the glimpse of a river, and a few peaceful
summer clouds.

Often in my younger days, when my grandmother sat by the fire, after
dinner, lost in thought--perhaps remembering the time when the picture
was really a portrait--I have curiously compared her wasted face with
the blooming beauty of the girl, and tried to detect the likeness. It
was strange how the resemblance would sometimes start out: how, as I
gazed and gazed upon her old face, age disappeared before my eager
glance, as snow melts in the sunshine, revealing the flowers of a
forgotten spring.

It was touching, to see my grandmother steal quietly up to her
portrait, on still summer mornings when every one had left the
house,--and I, the only child, played, disregarded,--and look at it
wistfully and long.

She held her hand over her eyes to shade them from the light that
streamed in at the window, and I have seen her stand at least a
quarter of an hour gazing steadfastly at the picture. She said
nothing, she made no motion, she shed no tear, but when she turned
away there was always a pensive sweetness in her face that made it not
less lovely than the face of her youth.

I have learned since, what her thoughts must have been--how that long,
wistful glance annihilated time and space, how forms and faces unknown
to any other, rose in sudden resurrection around her--how she loved,
suffered, struggled and conquered again; how many a jest that I shall
never hear, how many a game that I shall never play, how many a song