J. D. Beresford

“ The old lady by the fire-place looked up and smiled. A simple, childlike pleasure shone in her bright, unseeing eyes; the furrows about her almost invisible mouth were twisted into a simper of infantile satisfaction. She held up a tottering wrinkled finger.
"Hush!" she said in her thin, delicate voice. "Hush! Someone singing."
The face of the infant curiously changed. The smile was smoothed from his puckered mouth; as sudden attention dawned in his eyes. He struggled to sit up in his mother's arms. He raised a tiny hand and pointed upwards.
"He's imitating her," whispered his grandmother. ”

“ She wondered sometimes whether her father was not approaching his dotage; whether in another year or two he would not reach the condition of that old, old woman on the other side of the fire-place; deaf, almost blind, altogether senile and foolish.
"One at each end, father?" she repeated, with a slightly condescending smile.
"Aye, aye!" nodded the old man, with a touch of irritability; "there's only your grandmother left at one end, and only this infant come at the other." ”

“ The old man poked a trembling finger at his great-grandson and the infant smiled that faintly condescending smile of his, as if from his throne he acknowledged the slightly foolish adulation of his courtiers.
"He's rather tired," his mother explained.
"But you must show him to grannie before he goes," said his great-uncle. "This is a great occasion the meeting of the centuries."
"Oh, yes; show him to grannie," agreed his grandmother; "and then he can go upstairs." ”