happy. And there were seasons, it might be, happier than even these, when
Pansie had been kissed and put to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his
fireside gazing in among the massive coals, and absorbing their glow into
those cavernous abysses with which all men communicate. Hence come angels
or fiends into our twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them
in by-gone years. Over our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the fire-
gleam, stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as
beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child Pansie on her
pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him beheld a calm
surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into joy, yet not so
vividly as to break his evening quietude. The gate of heaven had been
kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might catch a glimpse
within. All the night afterwards, he would be semi-conscious of an
intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses of an old man's
slumber, and would awake, at early dawn, with a faint thrilling of the
heart-strings, as if there had been music just now wandering over them.




ANOTHER SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE


[Footnote: This scene was not revised by the author, but is printed from
his first draught.]

We may now suppose Grandsir Dolliver to have finished his breakfast, with
a better appetite and sharper perception of the qualities of his food than
he has generally felt of late years, whether it were due to old Martha's
cookery or to the cordial of the night before. Little Pansie had also made