reading aloud of some favorite old author.

"Often," said he; "and none are more effective with me for this service
than the sacred writers; I think I have waked a good many sleeping
fancies by the reading of a chapter in Isaiah."

In answer to inquiries of mine in regard to the incomplete state of
several of the stories of "Wolfert's Roost," he said: "Yes, we do not
get through all we lay out. Some of those sketches had lain in my mind
for a great many years; they made a sort of garret-trumpery, of which I
thought I would make a general clearance, leaving the odds and ends to
take care of themselves.

"There was a novel too, I once laid out, in which an English lad, being
a son of one of the old Regicide Judges, was to come over to New England
in search of his father: he was to meet with a throng of adventures, and
to arrive at length upon a Saturday night, in the midst of a terrible
thunder-storm, at the house of a stern old Massachusetts Puritan, who
comes out to answer to the rappings; and by a flash of lightning which
gleams upon the harsh, iron visage of the old man, the son fancies he
recognizes his father."

And as he told it, the old gentleman wrinkled his brow, and tried to put
on the fierce look he would describe.

"It's all there is of it," said he. "If you want to make a story, you
can furbish it up."

There were among other notable people at Saratoga, during the summer of
which I speak, the well-known Mrs. Dr. R----, of Philadelphia, since