16.  “What a queer old lady!” thought Polly; but she said “Yes’m,” respectfully, and looked at the fire.  “You don’t understand what I mean, do you?” asked Madam, still holding her by the chin.  “No’m; not quite.”

17.  “Well, dear, I’ll tell you.  In my day, children of fourteen and fifteen did n’t dress in the height of the fashion; go to parties as nearly like those of grown people as it’s possible to make them; lead idle, giddy, unhealthy lives, and get blase’ at twenty.  We were little folks till eighteen or so; worked and studied, dressed and played, like children; honored our parents; and our days were much longer in the land than now, it seems to me.”

18.  The old lady appeared to forget Polly, at the end of her speech; for she sat patting the plump little hand that lay in her own, and looking up at a faded picture of an old gentleman with a ruffled shirt and a queue.  “Was he your father, Madam?”

19.  “Yes, my dear; my honored father.  I did up his frills to the day of his death; and the first money I ever earned, was five dollars which he offered as a prize to whichever of his six girls would lay the handsomest darn in his silk stockings.”

20.  “How proud you must have been!” cried Polly, leaning on the old lady’s knee with an interested face.

21.  “Yes; and we all learned to make bread, and cook, and wore little chintz gowns, and were as gay and hearty as kittens.  All lived to be grandmothers; and I’m the last—­seventy next birthday, my dear, and not worn out yet; though daughter Shaw is an invalid at forty.”

22.  “That’s the way I was brought up, and that’s why Fan calls me old-fashioned, I suppose.  Tell more about your papa, please; I like it,” said Polly.

23.  “Say, ‘father.’  We never called him papa; and if one of my brothers had addressed him as ‘governor,’ as boys now do, I really think he’d have him cut off with a shilling.”

Definitions.—­3.  Im-pos’ing, having the power of exciting attention and feeling, impressive. 4.  Mag’pie, a noisy, mischievous bird, common in Europe and America. 12.  Van’ished, disappeared.  Me’te-or, a shooting star. 13.  Con’fi-dent-ly, with trust. 17.  Bla-se’ (pro. bla-za’), a French word meaning surfeited, rendered incapable further enjoyment. 21.  In’va-lid, a person who is sickly.

XXXII.  MY MOTHER’S HANDS.

1.  Such beautiful, beautiful hands! 
     They’re neither white nor small;
   And you, I know, would scarcely think
     That they are fair at all. 
   I’ve looked on hands whose form and hue
     A sculptor’s dream might be;
   Yet are those aged, wrinkled hands
     More beautiful to me.

2.  Such beautiful, beautiful hands! 
     Though heart were weary and sad,
   Those patient hands kept toiling on,
     That the children might be glad. 
   I always weep, as, looking back
     To childhood’s distant day,
   I think how those hands rested not
     When mine were at their play.