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 of sight, and I caught their
rustling whisper of prosperity. A warm, mellow atmosphere bathed the
whole. I have seen copies of the landscapes of the Italian painter
Claude which seemed to me faint reminiscences of that calm and happy
vision. But all this peace and prosperity seemed to flow from the
spreading palm as from a fountain.

"I do not know how long I looked, but I had, apparently, no power, as
I had no will, to remove the spectacles. What a wonderful island must
Nevis be, thought I, if people carry such pictures in their pockets,
only by buying a pair of spectacles! What wonder that my dear
grandmother Titbottom has lived such a placid life, and has blessed us
all with her sunny temper, when she has lived surrounded by such
images of peace.

"My grandfather died. But still, in the warm morning sunshine upon the
piazza, I felt his placid presence, and as I crawled into his great
chair, and drifted on in reverie through the still, tropical day, it
was as if his soft, dreamy eye had passed into my soul. My grandmother
cherished his memory with tender regret. A violent passion of grief
for his loss was no more possible than for the pensive decay of the
year. We have no portrait of him, but I see always, when I remember
him, that peaceful and luxuriant palm. And I think that to have known
one good old man--one man who, through the chances and rubs of a long
life, has carried his heart in his hand, like a palm branch, waving
all discords into peace, helps our faith in God, in ourselves, and in