his lounging, easy air as he tolled me along until we came to a spot
secluded, and ofttimes sacred to his wayward thoughts. He bade me lie
down on the grass and hear the birds sing. As we steeped ourselves in
the delicious idleness, he began to murmur some half-forgotten lines
from Thomson's "Seasons," which he said had been favorites of his from
boyhood. While we lay there, hidden in the grass, we heard approaching
footsteps, and Hawthorne hurriedly whispered, "Duck! or we shall be
interrupted by somebody." The solemnity of his manner, and the thought
of the down-flat position in which we had both placed ourselves to avoid
being seen, threw me into a foolish, semi-hysterical fit of laughter,
and when he nudged me, and again whispered more lugubriously than ever,
"Heaven help me, Mr. ---- is close upon us!" I felt convinced that if
the thing went further, suffocation, in my case at least, must ensue.

He kept me constantly informed, after he went to Liverpool, of how he
was passing his time; and his charming "English Note-Books" reveal the
fact that he was never idle. There were touches, however, in his private
letters which escaped daily record in his journal, and I remember how
delightful it was, after he landed in Europe, to get his frequent
missives. In one of the first he gives me an account of a dinner where
he was obliged to make a speech. He says:--

"I tickled up John Bull's self-conceit (which is very easily done)
with a few sentences of most outrageous flattery, and sat down in a
general puddle of good feeling." In another he says: "I have taken a
house in Rock Park, on the Cheshire side of the Mersey, and am as
snug as a bug in a rug. Next year you must come and see how I live.
Give my regards to everybody, and my love to half a dozen.... I wish
you would call on Mr. Savage, the antiquarian, if you know him, and
ask whether he can inform me what part of England the original