When it came to the black coffee, and then to the 'petits verres' of
cognac, with lumps of sugar set fire to atop, it was something that so
far transcended my home-kept experience that it began to seem altogether
visionary.

Neither Fields nor Doctor Holmes smoked, and I had to confess that I did
not; but Lowell smoked enough for all three, and the spark of his cigar
began to show in the waning light before we rose from the table. The
time that never had, nor can ever have, its fellow for me, had to come to
an end, as all times must, and when I shook hands with Lowell in parting,
he overwhelmed me by saying that if I thought of going to Concord he
would send me a letter to Hawthorne. I was not to see Lowell again
during my stay in Boston; but Doctor Holmes asked me to tea for the next
evening, and Fields said I must come to breakfast with him in the
morning.




XI.

I recall with the affection due to his friendly nature, and to the
kindness afterwards to pass between us for many years, the whole aspect
of the publisher when I first saw him. His abundant hair, and his full
"beard as broad as ony spade," that flowed from his throat in Homeric
curls, were touched with the first frost. He had a fine color, and his
eyes, as keen as they were kind, twinkled restlessly above the wholesome
russet-red of his cheeks. His portly frame was clad in those Scotch
tweeds which had not yet displaced the traditional broadcloth with us in
the West, though I had sent to New York for a rough suit, and so felt