HardPress Classic Books Series

Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Mrs. Molesworth is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of Mrs. Molesworth then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.

Just as she had made up her mind that she would try to go to sleep, she felt a slight change in the motion of the train—the bum and rattle, rattle and bum, grew fainter—was it only her fancy, or could it, oh! could it be that they were slackening speed? If so, it could only mean arriving at Alten, for her governess had distinctly told her they would not stop again till they had reached their journey's end. 'Sleep, my dear,' she had said, 'sleep well till I wake you, and then we shall be there. There will be no other stopping anywhere to disturb you.' Leonore held her breath in anxiety—yes, it was no fancy—they were moving more and more slowly, and through the darkness lights, which were not the glimmer of the rain-drops, began to appear. Then at last there was a pull-up. 'Fraulein, Fraulein,' cried Leonore, in great excitement, 'wake up, quick. We're there—do you hear? The train has stopped.

We never thought of Finster St. Mabyn's being haunted. We really never did. This may seem strange, but it is absolutely true. It was such an extremely interesting and curious place in many ways that it required nothing extraneous to add to its attractions. Perhaps this was the reason. Now-a-days, immediately that you hear of a house being "very old," the next remark is sure to be "I hope it is"—or "is not"—that depends on the taste of the speaker—"haunted".

The school-room at Number 19, Norfolk Terrace, was not, it must be confessed, a particularly attractive room. To begin with, it looked out upon the little garden at the back of the house, and this same little garden was not much to look out upon. The modest, old-fashioned name of “green” would have suited it better.

A classic novel by Mrs. Molesworth, best known as a writer of books for the young, such as Tell Me a Story (1875), Carrots (1876), The Cuckoo Clock (1877), The Tapestry Room (1879), and A Christmas Child (1880).

“Mary is crying,” said Mr Coo. “No!” replied Mrs Coo. But Mr Coo said again— “Mary is crying,” and though Mrs Coo repeated— “No!” she knew by the way he held his head on one side and looked at her, that he was very much in earnest indeed. I must tell you that when Mrs Coo said ‘no,’ it went off into a soft sound that was almost like ‘coo’; indeed most of her talking, and of Mr Coo’s too, sounded like that, which is the reason, I daresay, that many people would not have understood their conversation. But it would be rather tiresome to write “no,” or other words, with double o’s at the end, so I will leave it to be fancied, which will do just as well.

It was not their home. That was easy to be seen by the eager looks of curiosity and surprise on the two little faces inside the heavy travelling carriage. Yet the faces were grave, and there was a weary look in the eyes, for the journey had been long, and it was not for pleasure that it had been undertaken. The evening was drawing in, and the day had been a somewhat gloomy one, but as the light slowly faded, a soft pink radiance spread itself over the sky. They had been driving for some distance through a flat monotonous country; then, as the ground began to rise, the coachman relaxed his speed, and the children, without knowing it, fell into a half slumber.

Autumn—scarcely late autumn yet—and the day had been mild. But as the afternoon wore on towards evening, there came the chilliness and early gloom inevitable at the fall of the year—accompanied, to those who are sensitive to such things, by the indescribable touch of melancholy never present in the same way at other seasons.

Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive collection. As part of our on-going commitment to delivering value to the reader, we have also provided you with a link to a website, where you may download a digital version of this work for free. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. Whilst the books in this collection have not been hand curated, an aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature. As a result of this book being first published many decades ago, it may have occasional imperfections. These imperfections may include poor picture quality, blurred or missing text. While some of these imperfections may have appeared in the original work, others may have resulted from the scanning process that has been applied. However, our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. While some publishers have applied optical character recognition (OCR), this approach has its own drawbacks, which include formatting errors, misspelt words, or the presence of inappropriate characters. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with an experience that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic book, and that the occasional imperfection that it might contain will not detract from the experience.

Illustrated with color plates and fine line drawings by E. H. Shepard. The Children's Illustrated Classics edition. Illustrated "wallpaper" blue and white end papers.

It is already a long time since I was a little girl. Sometimes, when I look out upon the world and see how many changes have come about, how different many things are from what I can remember them, I could believe that a still longer time had passed since my childhood than is really the case. Sometimes, on the contrary, the remembrance of things that then happened comes over me so very vividly, so very real-ly, that I can scarcely believe myself to be as old as I am.

The children sat round me in the gloaming. There were several of them; from Madge, dear Madge with her thick fair hair and soft kind grey eyes, down to pretty little Sybil—Gipsy, we called her for fun,—whom you would hardly have guessed, from her brown face and bright dark eyes, to be Madge’s “own cousin.” They were mostly girls, the big ones at least, which is what one would expect, for it is not often that big boys care much about sitting still, and even less about anything so sentimental as sitting still in the twilight doing nothing. There were two or three little boys however, nice round-faced little fellows, who had not yet begun to look down upon “girls,” and were very much honoured at being admitted to a good game of romps with Madge and her troop.It was one of these—the rosiest and nicest of them all, little Ted—who pulled my dress and whispered, but loud enough for every one to hear, with his coaxingest voice—“Tell me a story, aunty.” And then it came all round in a regular buzz, in every voice, repeated again and again—“O aunty! do; dear, dear aunty, tell us a story.”I had been knitting, but it had grown too dark even for that. I could not pretend to be “busy.” What could I say? I held up my hands in despair.“O children! dear children!” I cried, “truly, truly, I don’t know what stories to tell. You are such dreadfully wise people now-a-days—you have long ago left behind you what I used to think wonderful stories—‘Cinderella,’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ and all the rest of them; and you have such piles of story-books that you are always reading, and many of them too written for you by the cleverest men and women living! What could I tell you that you would care to hear? Why, it will be the children telling stories to amuse the papas and mammas, and aunties next, like the ‘glorious revolution’ in ‘Liliput Levée!’ No, no, your poor old aunty is not quite in her dotage yet. She knows better than to try to amuse you clever people with her stupid old hum-drum stories.”I did not mean to hurt the poor dear little things—I did not, truly—I spoke a little in earnest, but more in jest, as I shook my head and looked round the circle. But to my surprise they took it all for earnest, and the tears even gathered in two or three pairs of eyes.“Aunty, you know we don’t think so,” began Madge, gentle Madge always, reproachfully.And “It’s too bad of you, aunty, too bad,” burst out plain-speaking Dolly. And worst of all, Ted clambered manfully up on to my knees, and proceeded to shake me vigorously. “Naughty aunty,” he said, “naughty, naughty aunty. Ted will shake you, and shake you, to make you good.”What could I do but cry for mercy? and promise anything and everything, fifty stories on the spot, if only they would forgive me?“But, truly children,” I said again, when the hubbub had subsided a little, “I am afraid I do not know any stories you would care for.”“We should care for anything you tell us,” they replied, “about when you were a little girl, or anything.”I considered a little. “I might tell you something of that kind,” I said, “and perhaps, by another evening, I might think over about some other people’s ‘long agos’—your grandmother’s, for instance. Would that please you?”Great applause.“And another thing,” I continued, “if I try to rub up some old stories for you, don’t you think you might help? You, Madge, dear, for instance, you are older than the others—couldn’t you tell them something of your own childish life even?”CONTENTSChapter One. Introduction.Chapter Two. The Reel Fairies.Chapter Three. Good-Night, Winny.Chapter Four. Con and the Little People.Chapter Five. Mary Ann Jolly.Chapter Six. Too Bad.Chapter Seven. Charlie’s Disappointment.

Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. This means that we have checked every single page in every title, making it highly unlikely that any material imperfections – such as poor picture quality, blurred or missing text - remain. When our staff observed such imperfections in the original work, these have either been repaired, or the title has been excluded from the Leopold Classic Library catalogue. As part of our on-going commitment to delivering value to the reader, within the book we have also provided you with a link to a website, where you may download a digital version of this work for free. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience. If you would like to learn more about the Leopold Classic Library collection please visit our website at www.leopoldclassiclibrary.com