Mrs. Grant

“ The easy touch of Mrs. Grant did not awaken her. So she called louder, and shook the sleeper more vigorously. At this, Mary started up, and looked around in a half-conscious, bewildered manner. Her cheeks were like scarlet.
"Come, dear—tea is ready," said Mrs. Grant.
"Oh! Yes." And Mary, not yet clearly awake, started to leave the room instead of approaching the table.
"Where are you going, child?" Mrs. Grant caught her arm.
Mary stood still, looking at Mrs. Grant, in a confused way.
"Tea is ready." Mrs. Grant spoke slowly and with emphasis. ”

“ Every woman is, perhaps, fond, in a blind, instinctive way, of her own; but the more heavenly love which takes all children in its arms and blesses them is not by any means universal.
The most powerful trait in Mrs. Grant's character was a silent, unobtrusive selfishness. The whole world revolved, to her thought, about her. Rains fell, dews dropped earthward, winds blew and suns shone for Julia Grant. She had consented with secret reluctance to keep the child, and from that moment a root of bitterness and jealousy had sprung up in her heart. ”

“ At the close of General Grant's administration, in their journey around the world, they were received by the crowned heads of every country, and Mrs. Grant was universally admired for the simplicity of her manner and sincerity of her greeting. Her absolute devotion to her husband and children has left an example worthy of emulation. ”

“ Mrs. Grant shook her head. “If our husbands are really gone,” she said, “she won’t stay long after them.”
“Oh, yes, she will,” asserted Miss Latimer; “the source of all strength is open to my Lucy, and she will be found ready to do the next thing.”
“I know there’s a great deal in that,” Mrs. Grant admitted. “Grief does not kill according to the greatness of itself, or of the love behind it, only according to the weakness of the constitution; but she looks little more than a spirit already.”
A postman’s knock came to the door. Tom ran to see what had arrived. ”

“ Grant, "and I also like her better than I did, although I never disliked her."
"The person I don't like so well," said Miss Minster, "is Mrs. Brent. I hope we've seen the last of her here for the present."
But they had not, for almost immediately she had spoken a telegram was brought in from Mrs. Brent, announcing her arrival that afternoon, and asking Mrs. Grant to take her in, as there was nobody at the Castle. She also asked Mrs. Grant to meet her at Burport, which seemed to indicate that she had something of importance to disclose to her. ”

“ Grant went into the gate under the two old Lombardy poplars and walked up the narrow path to the door, where they were met by the two aunts.
Hannah gave Mrs. Grant a frigid but not unfriendly kiss; and Maria seemed for a moment to tremble on the verge of an emotion, but she glanced at Hannah, and then gave her greeting in exactly the same repressed and non-committal way.
Supper was waiting for them. On the table was the gilt-edged china. Mrs. Grant didn’t notice it immediately, till she saw her husband smiling at her over his teacup; then she felt fidgety, and couldn’t eat. ”

“ Grant! Dear Mrs. Grant, do save me! Tell them all that I am too wretched to see any one. Thank them all for me, dear Mrs. Grant, and save me from them. Pray, save me from them!" The girl threw her arm round the widow and sobbed helplessly.
"No, no, my child, they shall not come near you. I only brought you the messages. I do not ask you to see any one. You shall, my darling Maud, do just as you please. A number of other people have come too. Many of Sir Alexander's old friends. But you hardly know these. My only thought was, might you wish to see Mr. Grey, who is doing everything ”

“ Grant, who stood bending over her.
Mary did not reply.
"Does the pain in your side continue?"
"Yes, ma'am." Her voice was dull.
"And the tightness over your breast?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"What can I do for you?"
"Nothing. I want rest and sleep."
Mrs. Grant stood for some time looking down upon Mary's red cheeks; red in clearly defined spots, that made the pale forehead whiter by contrast.
"Something more than sleep is wanted, I fear," she said to herself, as she passed from the chamber and went down stairs. In less than half an hour she returned. ”

“ Mrs. Grant. He don’t have to say he hates. I know my brother. If a man looks at his wife, he don’t have to tell me. He implies he hates her. This was something—he went someplace and he told me something that, I think we read this in the paper, I will be honest about it, that at the World’s Fair they don’t want them in. I don’t know where I got the information.
Mr. Griffin. Do you remember any radio script he got from H. L. Hunt?
Mrs. Grant. It seems to me the day I was in his car, he took me from the hospital, and I think he had it in there before I even went to the hospital, I don’t know. ”

“ Grant began again: "What a beautiful palace, Mr. President. It must be delightful with that charming garden." Again the marshal to me: "Mais je vous en prie Madame, dites à Madame Grant que je ne puis pas causer avec elle. Il ne faut pas qu'elle me parle, je ne comprends pas." "Mrs. Grant, the marshal is distressed that he cannot talk to you, but he really does not understand any English." It was very trying for Mrs. Grant. Happily her other neighbour knew a little English and she could talk to him, but all through dinner, at intervals, she began again at the marshal. ”

“ Chapter VIII. Merry and Molly
Now let us see how the other missionaries got on with their tasks.
Farmer Grant was a thrifty, well-to-do man, anxious to give his children greater advantages than he had enjoyed, and to improve the fine place of which he was justly proud. Mrs. Grant was a notable housewife, as ambitious and industrious as her husband, but too busy to spend any time on the elegancies of life, though always ready to help the poor and sick like a good neighbor and Christian woman. The three sons—Tom, Dick, and Harry—were big fellows of seventeen, nineteen, and twenty-one ”

“ Their affairs prospered, they grew richer every year, as if nobody's child had brought a blessing with her; but it was a constant source of bitterness to Mrs. Grant that they were laying up for strangers, or perhaps for this waif, whom no one else claimed, and [Pg 167] who seemed likely to remain in their house for ever, like some noiseless, unwelcome shadow.
But at last, when the child had been for ten years her unwelcome housemate, to Mrs. Grant herself was given a little baby girl, God's messenger of love, as I think every child must be, to every mother. Never had baby a warmer welcome. ”

“ A collection of her correspondence was published in 1844, in three volumes octavo, edited by her only surviving son, John P. Grant, Esq.
As a writer, Mrs Grant occupies a respectable place. She had the happy art of turning her every-day observation, as well as the fruits of her research, to the best account. Her letters, which she published at the commencement of her literary career, as well as those which appeared posthumously, are favourable specimens of that species of composition. As a poet, she attained to no eminence. ”

“ The women talked on. Occasionally Madam Grant's voice rose to a more excited note, and a few words came to him, betraying to his knowledge of her that her mood had been interrupted by her customary vagaries. At such times the little girl would withdraw her glance to gaze solemnly in Madam Grant's direction ”

“ If she were innocent—if she had been grossly wronged, and had sought the relief from her distress which the laws allow, and I liked her and he loved her, I shouldn't object. Or, put it in this way: I should prefer that Gordon did not marry a widow, but a girl with all the freshness of her life before her."
"Yes, indeed," murmured Constance.
"But plenty of young men fall in love with widows and marry, and no one thinks any the worse of the widows, or of them. I'd fully as lief Gordon married a divorced woman as one who had buried her husband. ”

“ In these languid moments he would think to himself: "I have been over-trained by crime, and I am not capable of fighting as of old."
The first day he called at the Castle after meeting his mother there, Maud could not be seen. She sent down Mrs. Grant to say she hoped Mr. Grey would excuse her, as she had a headache, and Mrs. Grant had recommended her to keep to her room. ”

“ The days of chivalry and romance have gone; but the "old, old story" yet remains to us, fresh as when first told in Eden.
"For life or death, for good or for evil, for weal or woe, darling Estelle, I leave my heart in your keeping!" said I, in a low passionate whisper; "in twelve months, perhaps, I may claim you as my wife."
"L'homme propose, et Dieu dispose," said she, quietly and tenderly. "I yet hope to see you, were it but for a day, at Walcot Park, ere you sail." ”

“ Young girls in general look to the bright side of everything: thus the sisters were full of hope; and they loved their lost Margaret so much, that they shrunk, instinctively, with dismay from the rough inferences of their father; and from the idea that any one could injure a being so gentle and so harmless.
"Listen to me, Effie Drummond," resumed the old lord, through his long mustachios, which resembled those of a walrus: "look a little more at the quarterings on Lord Hailes' tabard-coad and a little less at yonder devilish ships; and thou, too, Madam Sybilla—what, the fury! ”

“ The truth was that the Countess and her daughter had almost had high words on the subject of the Baron.
'Mamma,' the latter had said, 'the idea of such a thing is intolerable and absurd!'
'Why absurd, Grafine?' asked her mother, with asperity.
'A man of forty or more, getting bald already,' said Ernestine mockingly; 'a stout man in a blue coat and brass buttons, with a red ribbon, of course, at his lapelle; a man who, for twenty years, has never made up his august mind to marry, comes now to make a matrimonial victim of me. ”

“ If her situation with me was perilous, what had it been if with Lord Pottersleigh? But had she been with him, no such event as a descent to that unlucky pleasure grotto could have been thought of. Though pale and terrified, not a tear escaped her now; but her white and beautiful face was turned, with a haggard aspect, to mine. A life-buoy happened to be in the boat, and without a word I tied it to her securely.
"Is there not one for you?" she asked, piteously, laying a hand on mine.
"Think not of me, Lady Estelle; if you are saved, what care I for myself?" ”

“ You may be sure at any rate of this,—that your engagement with Sir Francis Geraldine he has never read."
"I have sometimes hoped," said Mrs. Western, "that he knew it all." Lady Grant shook her head. "I have sometimes thought that he knew it all, and regarded it as a matter on which nothing need be said between us. Should I have been angry with him had he not told me of Miss Tremenhere?"
"Do you measure the one thing by the other," said Lady Grant; "a man's desires by a woman's, a man's sense of honour by what a woman is supposed to feel? ”

“ Lady Margaret grew ghastly pale, and turned away. Sybilla, who did not perceive this emotion, laughed; but Euphemia, who had now the place of mother over them all, said gravely,
"You are overforward, imps. Eight years hence it will be time enough for Lizzie, and for you, Beatie, to think of lovers, and talk of hoods and veils. Marry come up! child, thou canst not spin yet! But see—Barton's boat hath reached the Rock of St. Nicholas."
"Alas!" said Margaret, sadly, "what evil tidings we have to give him of his father's fate." ”

“ "I pay very little regard," said Mrs. Grant, "to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person." ”

“ Who was this fair woman, so beautiful, so graceful, so gentle in breeding and manner, that avowed herself his enemy, and yet admitted that she loved him; who gave him an opal ring in token of that love, and yet repelled further advances; and who now, he fondly believed, intrusted him with a letter?
"Champfleurie," said he, "I presume you know all the great people about the queen-mother's court?"
"Ay, from the great Earl of Huntly down to yonder little foot-page, who is clanking his spurs at the Close-head; for your court page is a great man too." ”

“ Mrs. Grant and I go on to New York City on Monday night to meet Nellie and bring her home. It is not probable that the vessel in which she sailed will reach New York City before Tuesday morning, so that we will be in the city from Monday morning until Tuesday night. If Jennie were at home I do not know but we might go as far as Elizabeth on Saturday and remain over Sunday.—I am much obliged to you for the offer of your kind offices. Probably it will be pleasant for you to meet us on Tuesday on the vessel that brings Mr. Borie and party home. ”

“ Granton, and “my Colin,” who, if he has not three pennyworth of brains, has the kindest heart and the heaviest purse in the whole neighbourhood.
I am sure Mrs. Granton must have felt proud of her handsome suite of rooms, quite a perambulatory parterre, boasting all the hues of the rainbow, subdued by the proper complement of inevitable black. By and by, as the evening advanced, dot after dot of the adored scarlet made its appearance round the doors, and circulating gradually round the room, completed the coloring of the scene. ”