If I had meant you to stay tonight, I should
have given you a bath; but you know everybody in the house is
miserable about you, and it would be cruel to keep them so all
night. You must go downstairs.'
'I'm so glad, grandmother, you didn't say "Go home," for this is my
home. Mayn't I call this my home?'
'You may, my child. And I trust you will always think it your
home. Now come. I must take you back without anyone seeing you.'
'Please, I want to ask you one question more,' said Irene. 'Is it
because you have your crown on that you look so young?'
'No, child,' answered her grandmother; 'it is because I felt so
young this evening that I put my crown on. And I thought you would
like to see your old grandmother in her best.'
'Why do you call yourself old? You're not old, grandmother.'
'I am very old indeed. It is so silly of people - I don't mean
you, for you are such a tiny, and couldn't know better - but it is
so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and
witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and
rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing
whatever to do with all that.
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