life; or else it was that
nightmare-feeling which we sometimes have in dreams, when we seem to
find ourselves wandering through a crowded avenue, with the noonday sun
upon us, in some wild extravagance of dress or nudity. He was conscious
of estrangement from his towns-people, but did not always know how nor
wherefore, nor why he should be thus groping through the twilight mist
in solitude. If they spoke loudly to him, with cheery voices, the
greeting translated itself faintly and mournfully to his ears; if they
shook him by the hand, it was as if a thick, insensible glove absorbed
the kindly pressure and the warmth. When little Pansie was the companion
of his walk, her childish gayety and freedom did not avail to bring him
into closer relationship with men, but seemed to follow him into that
region of indefinable remoteness, that dismal Fairy-Land of aged fancy,
into which old Grandsir Dolliver had so strangely crept away.

Yet there were moments, as many persons had noticed, when the
great-grandpapa would suddenly take stronger hues of life. It was as if
his faded figure had been colored over anew, or at least, as he and
Pansie moved along the street, as if a sunbeam had fallen across him,
instead of the gray gloom of an instant before. His chilled
sensibilities had probably been touched and quickened by the warm
contiguity of his little companion through the medium of her hand, as it
stirred within his own, or some inflection of her voice that set his
memory ringing and chiming with forgotten sounds. While that music
lasted, the old man was alive and happy. And there were seasons, it
might be, happier than even these, when Pansie had been kissed and put
to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his fireside gazing in among the
massive coals, and absorbing their glow into those cavernous abysses
with which all men communicate. Hence come angels or fiends into our
twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them in by-gone
years. Over our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the fire-gleam,
stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as
beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child Pansie on
her pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him beheld a
calm surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into joy, yet
not go vividly as to break his evening quietude. The gate of heaven had
been kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might catch a
glimpse within.