debarkation commenced. My grandfather Titbottom stood looking on to
see the passengers descend. There were but a few of them, and mostly
traders from the neighboring island. But suddenly the face of a young
girl appeared over the side of the vessel, and she stepped upon the
plank to descend. My grandfather Titbottom instantly advanced, and
moving briskly reached the top of the plank at the same moment, and
with the old tassel of his cap flashing in the sun, and one hand in
the pocket of his dressing gown, with the other he handed the young
lady carefully down the plank. That young lady was afterwards my
grandmother Titbottom.

"And so, over the gleaming sea which he had watched so long, and which
seemed thus to reward his patient gaze, came his bride that sunny
morning.

"'Of course we are happy,' he used to say: 'For you are the gift of
the sun I have loved so long and so well.' And my grandfather
Titbottom would lay his hand so tenderly upon the golden hair of his
young bride, that you could fancy him a devout Parsee caressing
sunbeams.

"There were endless festivities upon occasion of the marriage; and my
grandfather did not go to one of them in his dressing-gown. The gentle
sweetness of his wife melted every heart into love and sympathy. He
was much older than she, without doubt. But age, as he used to say
with a smile of immortal youth, is a matter of feeling, not of years.
And if, sometimes, as she sat by his side upon the piazza, her fancy
looked through her eyes upon that summer sea and saw a younger lover,
perhaps some one of those graceful and glowing heroes who occupy the
foreground of all young maidens' visions by the sea, yet she could not