this latter reality when I finger the cash. Do come home in season
to preside over the publication of the Romance."

He had christened his estate The Wayside, and in a postscript to the
above letter he begs me to consider the name and tell him how I like it.

Another letter, evidently foreshadowing a foreign appointment from the
newly elected President, contains this passage:--

"Do make some inquiries about Portugal; as, for instance, in what
part of the world it lies, and whether it is an empire, a kingdom,
or a republic. Also, and more particularly, the expenses of living
there, and whether the Minister would be likely to be much pestered
with his own countrymen. Also, any other information about foreign
countries would be acceptable to an inquiring mind."

When I returned from abroad I found him getting matters in readiness to
leave the country for a consulship in Liverpool. He seemed happy at the
thought of flitting, but I wondered if he could possibly be as contented
across the water as he was in Concord. I remember walking with him to
the Old Manse, a mile or so distant from The Wayside, his new residence,
and talking over England and his proposed absence of several years. We
strolled round the house, where he spent the first years of his married
life, and he pointed from the outside to the windows, out of which he
had looked and seen supernatural and other visions. We walked up and
down the avenue, the memory of which he has embalmed in the "Mosses,"
and he discoursed most pleasantly of all that had befallen him since he
led a lonely, secluded life in Salem. It was a sleepy, warm afternoon,
and he proposed that we should wander up the banks of the river and lie
down and watch the clouds float above and in the quiet stream. I recall