while the next sentence was forming in the writer's mind. When he
miswrote, instead of crossing out the word, he would smear it out with
his finger, and rewrite over the smear; so that his page had a mottled
appearance. The writing was accompanied by intermittent nods of the
head, as one would say, "Sic cogito!" So far as he is concerned, the
shadows close in on me here.

But I have said that the house was of three stories, and I have
accounted for two of them only. The second was occupied by my
grandmother Hawthorne and her two daughters, Aunt Louisa and Aunt Ebe
(the latter appellation being an infantile version of her name
invented by my father, who was her junior, and used by us to
distinguish between her and that other Elizabeth who was Aunt Lizzie
Peabody). Of my grandmother Hawthorne I have no personal recollection
at all; she was a Manning, a beautiful old lady, whom her son
resembled. She had been a recluse from society for forty years; it
was held to be good form, in that age and place, to observe such
Hindoo rites after the death of a husband; hers had died in his
thirty-fourth year in Surinam. But she had also insensibly fallen into
the habit of isolating herself in some degree from her own family;
they were all of them addicted to solitude of the body, though kindly
enough disposed in the abstract. When we went to live in the Mall
Street house, the old lady and her daughters uprooted themselves from
their home of many years in Herbert Street and dwelt with us; and that
quaint crystallization of their habits was in a measure broken up. But
the dowager Mrs. Hawthorne, it soon appeared, had come there to die;
she was more than seventy years old. My aunt Louisa I seem dimly to
recall as a tall, fragile, pale, amiable figure, not very effective.
My aunt Ebe I afterwards came to know well, and shall defer mention of
her. So I was encompassed by kindly petticoats, and was very happy,