'Well, child.'
Was the man with the knob on the top of his head----'
My grandmother interrupts me.
'You mean the gentleman, child.'
'Yes, I mean the gentleman--and who was always eating his nails,--was he like that?' Pointing to the stone monkey-figure.
'Like that, child! How can such an idea have entered your head? No; he was a very handsome man.'
A pure fiction, I am convinced, if nothing worse. How could a man with a knob on his head, and who was always eating his nails, be handsome?
'Your grandfather used to be very jealous of him; he was one of my sweethearts. I had several, and nine proposals of marriage before I was twenty years of age. Some girls that I knew were ready to scratch their eyes out with vexation. He proposed, and wished to run away with me, but my family stepped in between us, and prevented him. You can never be sufficiently grateful to me, child; for what would have become of you if I had run away and married him, goodness only knows!'
The reflection which is thus forced upon me involves such wild entanglements of possibilities that I am lost in the contemplation of them. What would have become of me? Supposing it had occurred--should I ever have been?
'He told me,' continues my grandmother, revelling in these honey-sweet reminiscences, 'after I had accepted your grandfather, that life was valueless without me, and that as he had lost me, he would be sure to go to the Devil. I don't know the end of him, for I only saw him once after that; but he was a man of his word. He told me so in Lovers' Walk, where I happened to be strolling one evening--quite by accident, child, I assure you, for I burnt the letter I received from him in the morning, for fear your grandfather should see it. Your grandfather had a frightfully jealous disposition--as if I could help the men looking at me! When we were first married he used to smash a deal of crockery, with his quick temper. I hope he is forgiven for it in the place he has gone to. He was an auctioneer and valuer; he had an immense reputation as a valuer. It was not undeserved; he fell in love with me. Oh, he was clever, child, in his way!'