If Titbottom had been only a little younger, a little
handsomer, a little more gallantly dressed--in fact, a little more of
a 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 of 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 tell
whether, when you grow older, you will regard them as a gift of the
greatest value, or as something that you had been happier never to
have possessed.
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