balked, and I pulled out my spectacles.

"I had seen her, already, and now I saw him. He lived only in memory,
and his memory was a spacious and stately palace. But he did not
oftenest frequent the banqueting hall, where were endless hospitality
and feasting--nor did he loiter much in reception rooms, where a
throng of new visitors was forever swarming--nor did he feed his
vanity by haunting the apartment in which were stored the trophies of
his varied triumphs--nor dream much in the great gallery hung with
pictures of his travels. But from all these lofty halls of memory he
constantly escaped to a remote and solitary chamber, into which no one
had ever penetrated. But my fatal eyes, behind the glasses, followed
and entered with him, and saw that the chamber was a chapel. It was
dim, and silent, and sweet with perpetual incense that burned upon an
altar before a picture forever veiled. There, whenever I chanced to
look, I saw him kneel and pray; and there, by day and by night, a
funeral hymn was chanted.

"I do not believe you will be surprised that I have been content to
remain deputy bookkeeper. My spectacles regulated my ambition, and I
early learned that there were better gods than Plutus. The glasses
have lost much of their fascination now, and I do not often use them.
Sometimes the desire is irresistible. Whenever I am greatly
interested, I am compelled to take them out and see what it is that I
admire.

"And yet--and yet," said Titbottom, after a pause, "I am not sure that
I thank my grandfather."

Prue had long since laid away her work, and had heard every word of