“I have been to the top of Rigi, and old Pilatus and Vesuvius, and Flegere, and crossed the Mer-de-Glace and Tete Noir, and the Simplon, and they are all here on my Alpenstock; look, see! but no, you cannot, it is so dark!  I’ll raise the curtain.”

And Grey hastened to the window, while his grandfather cried out in alarm: 

“Stop, Grey, stop.  I’ll call your Aunt Hannah!  Hannah, come here!”

She was at his side in an instant, bending over him while he whispered: 

“Is it safe?  Can he see nothing, sure?”

“Nothing, father, nothing,” was the reply, and thus reassured the old man took the Alpenstock, which had done such good service, and looked at the queer names burned upon it, lingering longest upon the first one,

    “Grey Jerrold, Boston, Mass., 18—.”

Very rapidly Grey talked of his travels, and the wonders beyond the sea.

“But, after all, America is best,” he said, “and I am glad I am an American.  Boston is the place to be born in.  Don’t you think so, grandpa?”

“Yes, yes.  Did you go to Wales?  To Carnarvon?” the old man said, so abruptly that Grey stopped short and stared at him blankly.

His Aunt Hannah had asked the same question.  Could it be they were more interested in Carnarvon than in Mont Blanc and Vesuvius?  If so, he would confine himself to Carnarvon, and he began again to describe the old castle, and the birth-room of the first Prince of Wales.  Then his grandfather interrupted him by asking: 

“Did you hear of any family there by the name of Rogers?”

“Rogers?  No.  Why?  Did you ever know any one by that name who lived in Carnarvon?” Grey asked, and his grandfather replied: 

“Yes, a great many years ago, longer than you can remember.  Joel Rogers, that was the name, and he had a sister, Elizabeth.  You did not hear of her?”

“Father, father; you are talking too much; you are getting excited and tired,” Hannah interposed in some alarm, but her father replied: 

“No.  I’m not afraid of Grey, now that I see his face again; it’s a face to be trusted.  Grey would not harm his old grandfather.  Would you, boy?” and the childish old man began to cry piteously, while Grey looked inquiringly at his aunt, and touched his forehead meaningly, as much as to say: 

“I know, I understand; a little out of his head.”

She let him think so, and laying his hand on his grandfather’s hair, Grey said: 

“Don’t cry; of course I would not harm you, the best grandpa in all the world.”

“No, no, Grey; the worst, the worst; and yet it does me good to know you love and respect me, and you always will when I am dead and gone, won’t you, even if you should ever know how bad I was, and you may sometime, for it is impressed on me this morning that in some way you will help Hannah out of it.  You two, and no more.  Poor Hannah.  She has suffered so much for my sake.  Be good to her, Grey, when I am gone; be good to Hannah.  Poor Hannah.”