The Grandmother

The grandmother is the true heart of the lesson — the "lady" whose portrait the author paints.

• Serene and beautiful in old age. Short, fat, slightly bent and wrinkled, always in spotless white, she is described as being like "an expanse of pure white serenity" — not pretty, but genuinely beautiful in her calm.
• Deeply religious. Her days revolve around prayer, the rosary, the scriptures and the spinning-wheel; she is distressed by an education without God and disapproves of music as unfit for "gentlefolk."
• Loving and caring. She devotedly looks after the boy in his childhood and shows constant kindness to living creatures — feeding the village dogs and, later, the sparrows.
• Strong and self-possessed. She accepts change, seclusion and even the loss of her grandson's daily company "with resignation," never complaining or growing bitter. …