under those tall, academic pines, or watching the great logs as they
tumbled along the current of the Androscoggin, or shooting pigeons or
gray squirrels in the woods, or bat-fowling in the summer twilight, or
catching trout in that shadowy little stream which, I suppose, is still
wandering riverward through the forest, though you and I will never cast
a line in it again; two idle lads, in short (as we need not fear to
acknowledge now), doing a hundred things that the Faculty never heard
of, or else it would have been the worse for us--still, it was your
prognostic of your friend's destiny that he was to be a writer of
fiction."

The picture is a vignette of the time, and being in the open, too,
pleasantly ends the tale of college. On separating, it is pleasant to
notice, the friends exchanged keepsakes.

The four years had lapsed quietly and quickly by, and Hawthorne, who now
adopted the fanciful spelling of the name after his personal whim, was
man grown. There had been trying circumstances in these early days, but
he had met them hardily and lightly, as a matter of course; he had
practically educated himself by the help of books, and had also
discharged his duties as they seemed to the eyes of others; he could go
home feeling that he had satisfied his friends. He seems to have feared
that he might have satisfied them too well; and, some commendation
having preceded him, he endeavored to put them right by a letter to his
sister, July 14, 1825:--

"The family had before conceived much too high an opinion of my talents,
and had probably formed expectations which I shall never realize. I have
thought much upon the subject, and have finally come to the conclusion
that I shall never make a distinguished figure in the world, and all I