_And_, as this was the fourth pair spoilt in a month, Molly was obliged to give up half her weekly money for some time towards replacing them! But we are wandering away from the talk by the fire--grandmother and aunty in their low chairs working--the three children lying in various attitudes on the hearthrug, for hearthrug there was, seldom as such superfluities are to be seen at Chalet.

Grandmother was too "English" to have been satisfied with her pretty drawing-room without one--a nice fluffy, flossy one, which the children were so fond of burrowing in that grandmother declared she would need a new one by the time the winter was over! "_Can't_ you tell it to us to-night then, grandmother dear ?" said Molly.
"I would rather think it over a little first," said grandmother.

"You forget, Molly, that old people's memories are not like young ones.

And, as Marie says, it is very curious how, the older one gets, the further back things are those that one remembers the most distinctly.

The middle part of my life is hazy compared with the earlier part.