Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/252

 room, and Old Lady Pratt, with her favorite grandson at her side, passed down between her children and her children's children for the last time.

She panted a little when they reached the foot of the row, and James said, "I don't know how you feel, Grandma, but I'm kind o' tuckered out. Let's go and look on."

"That's a fib, James Spencer," she answered, sharply. "You think I'm tired and need to rest."

"You, Grandma? You never get tired. We all know that. But it's because you're so light on your feet. I guess you would be tired, though, if you'd gained fifteen pounds in a year, as I have."

And he escorted her resolutely to the straight-backed arm-chair, which she was glad enough to take, since she had not been obliged to "give in."

It was but a week after this Thanksgiving Day, on which she had seemed so young and gay, that Old Lady Pratt gave Aunt Betsy a great fright by not getting up to breakfast. It was an event without a precedent, and the fact that she only owned to feeling a little "rheumaticky" did not reassure her anxious daughter.

Immediately after the untasted breakfast, Eliza was despatched to summon Harriet, and Harriet was soon at her mother's bedside.

She found the old lady seeming very well and bright, and quite scoming the idea of calling in