Chapter I Grandaunt Nelson

Grandaunt Nelson

Grandaunt always was eccentric. Indeed, I was sometimes tempted to call her a much harsher name in the dark days when the clouds hung so heavy above us that I often doubted if there really was a sun behind them. But, as Mr. Whittier says, “Death softens all resentments, and the consciousness of a common inheritance of frailty and weakness modifies the severity of judgment;” and, looking back through the mist of years which blurs the sharp outlines of those days of trial, I can judge grandaunt more leniently than it was then possible for me to do. So I will let the adjective stand as I have written it.

Grandaunt

I remember our first meeting as distinctly as though it had happened yesterday.

I had wandered down the shining path of slate to our front gate, one morning. It had rained the night before, which accounted for the path shining so in the sun’s rays; and the air was soft and warm, [Pg 2]and the world altogether beautiful—but not to me, for I was oppressed by a great sorrow which I could not in the least understand. So I stood for a long time, clutching the slats of the gate, and gazing disconsolately out at the great, unknown world beyond.

[Pg 2]

Solitary pilgrimages into that world had always been forbidden me, and I had never questioned the wisdom or justice of the edict; being well content, indeed, with the place God had given me to live in, and desiring nothing better than to stay in my own little Paradise behind the shelter of the gate, with the Angel of Peace and Contentment guarding it, and watch the world sweep by. But that morning a hot rebellion shook me. Things were not as they had been in my Paradise,—all the joy had gone out of it; the sun seemed to shine no longer in the garden; the Angel had flown away. Why I scarcely knew, but with sudden resolution I reached for the latch.

And just then a tall figure loomed over me, and I found myself staring up into a pair of terrifically-glittering spectacles.

“What’s your name, little girl?” asked the stranger.

“Cecil Truman, ma’am,” I stammered, awed [Pg 3]by the severity of her face and a certain magisterial manner which reminded me of the Queen of Hearts—as though she might at any moment cry, “Off with her head!”—and far more effectively than the foolish Queen of 

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