GRANDMOTHER DEAR

A Book for Boys and Girls

BY MRS. MOLESWORTH

AUTHOR OF 'CARROTS,' 'CUCKOO CLOCK,' 'TELL ME A STORY'

ILLUSTRATED BY WALTER CRANE

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1932

First Edition November 1878. Reprinted December 1878
September and December 1882, 1886
1887, 1889, 1892, 1895, 1897, 1899, 1900, 1902, 1904, 1906, 1909, 1911 1918, 1920, 1932

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, EDINBURGH

'I HOPE IT ISN'T HAUNTED.'

TO
OUR 'GRANDMOTHER DEAR,'
A. J. S.

Maison Du Chanoine,
October 1878.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. Making Friends
CHAPTER II. Lost in the Louvre
CHAPTER III. "Where is Sylvia?"
CHAPTER IV. The Six Pinless Brooches
CHAPTER V. Molly's Plan
CHAPTER VI. The Apple-Tree of Stéfanos
CHAPTER VII. Grandmother's Grandmother
CHAPTER VIII. Grandmother's Story (Continued)
CHAPTER IX. Ralph's Confidence
CHAPTER X. "That Cad Sawyer"
CHAPTER XI. "That Cad Sawyer"—Part II.
CHAPTER XII. A Christmas Adventure
CHAPTER XIII. A Christmas Adventure—Part II.
CHAPTER XIV. How this Book came to be written

Macmillan's Prize Library

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Sylvia lost in the Louvre

"Whose Drawer is this?"

Under the Apple-Tree

"Zwanzig—Twenty Schelling, that Cup"

In the Coppice

"Good-Bye again, my Boy, and God bless you!"

"I hope it isn't Haunted"

CHAPTER I.

MAKING FRIENDS.

"Well?" said Ralph.

"Well?" said Sylvia.

"Well?" said Molly.

Then they all three stood and looked at each other. Each had his or her own opinion on the subject which was uppermost in their minds, but each was equally reluctant to express it, till that of the others had been got at. So each of the three said "Well?" to the other two, and stood waiting, as if they were playing the old game of "Who speaks first?" It got tiresome, however, after a bit, and Molly, whose patience was the most quickly exhausted, at last threw caution and dignity to the winds.

"Well," she began, but the "well" this time had quite a different tone from the last; "well," she repeated emphatically, "I'm the youngest, and I suppose you'll say I shouldn't give my opinion first, but I just will, for all that. And my opinion is, that she's just as nice as she can be."

"And I think so too," said Sylvia, "Don't you, Ralph?"

"I?" said Ralph loftily, "you forget. I have seen her before."

"Yes, but not to remember," said Sylvia and Molly at once. "You might just as well never have seen her before as far as that goes. But isn't she nice?"

"Ye-es," said Ralph. "I don't think she's bad for a grandmother."

"'For a grandmother!'" cried Molly indignantly. "What do you mean, Ralph? What can be nicer than a nice grandmother?"

"But suppose she wasn't nice? she needn't be, you know. There are grandmothers and grandmothers," persisted Ralph.

"Of course I know that," said Molly. "You don't suppose I thought our grandmother was everybody's grandmother, you silly boy. What I say is she's just like a real grandmother—not like Nora Leslie's, who is