I have learned since, what her thoughts must have been--how that long,
wistful glance annihilated time and space, how forms and faces unknown
to any other, rose in sudden resurrection around her--how she loved,
suffered, struggled and conquered again; how many a jest that I shall
never hear, how many a game that I shall never play, how many a song
that I shall never sing, were all renewed and remembered as my
grandmother contemplated her picture.
I often stand, as she stood, gazing earnestly at the picture, so long
and so silently, that Prue looks up from her work and says she shall
be jealous of that beautiful belle, my grandmother, who yet makes her
think more kindly of those remote old times. "Yes, Prue, and that is
the charm of a family portrait."
"Yes, again; but," says Titbottom when he hears the remark, "how, if
one's grandmother were a shrew, a termagant, a virago?"
"Ah! in that case--" I am compelled to say, while Prue looks up again,
half archly, and I add gravely--"you, for instance, Prue."
Then Titbottom smiles one of his sad smiles, and we change the
subject.
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