GRANDMOTHER is very old; she has many wrinkles , and her hair is quite white; but her eyes, which shine like two stars, and even more beautifully, look at you mildly and pleasantly, and it does you good to look into them. And then she can tell the most wonderful stories; and she has a gown with great flowers worked in it , and it is of heavy silk , and it rustles . Grandmother knows a great deal, for she was a live long before father and mother, that' s quite certain ! Grandmother has a hymn-book with great silver clasps , and she often reads in that book ; in the middle of the book lies a rose , quite flat and dry ; it is not as pretty as the roses she has standing in the glass, and yet she smiles at it most pleasantly of all, and tears even come into her eyes .

I wonder why Grandmother looks at the withered flower in the old book in that way? Do you know? Why, eachtime that Grandmother' s tears fall upon the rose, its colours become fresh again; the rose swells and fills the whole room with its fragrance; the walls sink as if they were but mist , and all around her is the glorious green wood, where the sunlight streams through the leaves of the trees ; and Grandmother----why , she is young again, a charming maid with yellow curls and full blooming cheeks, pretty and graceful, fresh as any rose; but the eyes, the mild blessed eyes, they have been left to Grandmother. At her side sits a young man, tall and strong: he gives the rose to her, and she smiles; Grandmother cannot smile thus now ! ----yes , now she smiles But now he has passed away , and many thoughts and many forms of the past ; and the handsome young man is gone, and the rose lies in the hymn-book, and Grandmother sits there again, an old woman, and glances down at the withered rose that lies in the book .

Now Grandmother is dead . She had been sitting inher arm-chair, and telling a long, long lovely tale; and she said the tale was told now, and she was tired; and she leaned her head ba............