that his dusky
sadness of nature and expression was, as it were, the expiring gleam
and late twilight of ancestral splendors, I doubt if Mr. Bourne would
have preferred him for bookkeeper a moment sooner upon that account.
In truth, I have observed, down town, that the fact of your ancestors
doing nothing is not considered good proof that you can do anything.
But Prue and her sex regard sentiment more than action, and I
understand easily enough why she is never tired of hearing me read of
Prince Charlie. If Titbottom had been only a little younger, a little
handsomer, a little more gallantly dressed--in fact, a little more of
the Prince Charlie, I am sure her eyes would not have fallen again
upon her work so tranquilly, as he resumed his story.

"I can remember my grandfather Titbottom, although I was a very young
child, and he was a very old man. My young mother and my young
grandmother are very distinct figures in my memory, ministering to the
old gentleman, wrapped in his dressing-gown, and seated upon the
piazza. I remember his white hair and his calm smile, and how, not
long before he died, he called me to him, and laying his hand upon my
head, said to me:

"My child, the world is not this great sunny piazza, nor life the
fairy stories which the women tell you here as you sit in their laps.
I shall soon be gone, but I want to leave with you some memento of my
love for you, and I know nothing more valuable than these spectacles,
which your grandmother brought from her native island, when she
arrived here one fine summer morning, long ago. I cannot quite tell
whether, when you grow older, you will regard it as a gift of the
greatest value or as something that you had been happier never to have
possessed.'

"'But grandpapa, I am not short-sighted.'

"'My son, are you not human?' said the old gentleman; and how shall I
ever forget the thoughtful sadness with which, at the same time he
handed me the spectacles.

"Instinctively I put them on, and looked at my grandfather. But I saw
no grandfather, no piazza, no flowered dressing-gown: I saw only a
luxuriant palm-tree, waving broadly over a tranquil landscape.
Pleasant homes clustered around it. Gardens teeming with fruit and
flowers; flocks quietly feeding; birds wheeling and chirping. I heard
children's voices, and the low lullaby of happy mothers. The sound of
cheerful singing came wafted from distant fields upon the light
breeze. Golden harvests glistened out