Bertha ought to have understood that this was very ill-bred, and espoused her grandmother’s cause at once; but instead of that she was ashamed of her, and felt like crying.  If she could only have taken her guests into the parlor, where they would not have seen grandma!

[Illustration:  “Isn’t your grandmother a funny old woman?”]

“Such a funny old woman, with that immense check apron!  Bertha, she looks like some of the little old lady pincushions that I’ve seen, and she makes such a queer mouth when she talks.  She hasn’t a tooth in her head, has she? and I guess they didn’t teach grammar when she went to school.  Why do you let her wear that white cap? all the old ladies that I know wear black lace caps, with ribbons.  I thought I should laugh outright when she made that little dip of curtsy.”

“But she is real old,” said Bertha, deprecatingly, “and she has lived in the country most of her life.”

“I should think she had come from the backwoods!  I wonder she doesn’t make you wear ‘hum-knit’ stockings; or don’t you ‘scour yours out?’ O dear!”

“It is not right to laugh at old persons,” Bertha said, summoning all her courage; yet she was mortified and humiliated in the extreme.

“Oh!  I don’t mean anything, you know—­only it’s so funny!  You ought to see my grandmother.  She is nearly eighty, I believe, but she only owns to seventy.”

Bertha was too deeply hurt to make any comment.  Then Ada kissed her and coaxed her into good humor, telling her of the enjoyments Aunt Bell had in preparation.

When they returned to the room, Mrs. Bell was preparing to leave, and the carriage stood at the gate.

“We have decided on Thursday, Ada,” Mrs. Bell said to her niece; “and, Miss Bertha, I have coaxed your grandmother to pay me a visit.  I think a pleasant old lady, in possession of all her faculties, is rare good company—­quite a treat for me.  Now, Mrs. Gilbert, I shall send the carriage, and you will be sure not to disappoint me, if you are well.”

“You are very kind, indeed;” and grandmother gave another little “dip of a curtsy.”

Bertha looked amazed.

She was very quiet after her visitors had gone.  Her mother appeared to admire Miss Frances Wilson, and grandma said of Mrs. Bell:  “She’s a tender, true-hearted Christian lady.”

“Mother,” said Bertha, the next day, when they were alone; “couldn’t you fix grandma up a little to go to Mrs. Bell’s?”

“Why, she has a nice brown silk dress to wear, and a clean cap and kerchief.”

“But she looks so—­so—­old-fashioned, mother.”

“My dear, she is an old-fashioned lady.  I think she looks a great deal prettier than to be dressed like people thirty or forty years younger than she is.”

“But—­”

[Illustration:  “I am disappointed.”]

“O Bertha! you are not ashamed of dear old grandmother?” and Mrs. Gilbert looked at her daughter in amazement.  Bertha’s cheeks flushed, and tears came to her eyes.