“To a great verandah we comed, all crawled over with the butivulest white flowers the sun draws the scent from; an’ there, in a cane chair, sat an ancient lady—lady, I say, though you might have reckoned she was an old brown lizard by the look of her. Old ban’t the word for her. Time’s self would have looked a boy alongside her, if the picture-books be true. A great sunbonnet was over her head, an’ a frill under, an’ just a scanty thread or two of white hair peeping from that. A face all deep lines where the years had run over it; bright eyes peeping from behind great gold spectacles, an’ hands—my word! like joints of an old apple tree. Her was that homely too! A dandy-go-risset gown her wore, an’ a bit of knitting was in her hands, an’ a good book, wi’ very large print, ’pon a table beside her, an’ a li’l nigger gal waved a fan to keep the flies away. “I took my hat off an’ made a leg; then her son spoke: ‘Sit down there beside her and talk loud, and pretend with yourself that Madame Damian is your grandmother. Don’t try to use fine words; and remember this: if you do rightly as I bid you, you shall never repent this day as long as you live.’ “I was all in a maze, I do assure ’e; but I just reckoned obedience was best, an’ went at her with one eye on my gentleman, for fear as he should change his mind. “‘Well, my old dear,’ I said, ‘I be very pleased to meet ’e, an’ I do like to have a tell with ’e very much, if you’ll pardon a rough sailor-man. An’ I hopes you’ll put in a word with this here big gen’leman for me, ’cause I’ve eat one of his pomegranates unbeknownst-like, though I’m shot if I’d have touched un come I’d known ’twasn’t wild. An’ to tell ’e gospel, I be in a jakes of a mess as ’tis—far from my home an’ not a friend in the world that I know of.’ “Dallybuttons! To see that ancient woman! When I beginned to talk, her dropped her knitting, as if there was a spider in it, an’ sat up an’ stared out of her bead-black eyes. Though ’twas a fiery day, I went so cold as a frog all down my spine to see her glaze so keen. “‘Go on,’ she said in a funny old voice, ‘go on, young man, will ’e? Tell about where you comed from, please.’ “There! it did sound mighty familiar to hear her, an’ no mistake! “‘My heart! You’m West Country too!’ I cried out. “Her nodded, but her couldn’t speak another word. “‘Go on, go on talking to her,’ the man said. “So I sailed on. “‘You must know I runned off to sea, ma’am, from a farm down Dartymoor way. ’Tis a terrible coorious sort of a place, an’ calls for hard work if you wants to thrive there. Roots will do if you’m generous with stable stuff an’ lime, but corn be cruel shy, except oats. I was a lazy boy, I’m afraid, an’ got weary of being hit about like a foot-ball, though I deserved it; an’ I thought to mend my life by running away. The things I’ve seed! Lor’-amercy! ’tis a wonnerful world, sure enough, ma’am.’