owner of the old house was pining for his native air. Carpenters
next, appeared, making a tremendous racket among the outbuildings,
strewing the green grass with pine shavings and chips of chestnut
joists, and vexing the whole antiquity of the place with their
discordant renovations. Soon, moreover, they divested our abode of
the veil of woodbine which had crept over a large portion of its
southern face. All the aged mosses were cleared unsparingly away; and
there were horrible whispers about brushing up the external walls with
a coat of paint,--a purpose as little to my taste as might be that of
rouging the venerable cheeks of one's grandmother. But the hand that
renovates is always more sacrilegious than that which destroys. In
fine, we gathered up our household goods, drank a farewell cup of tea
in our pleasant little breakfast-room,--delicately fragrant tea, an
unpurchasable luxury, one of the many angel gifts that had fallen like
dew upon us,--and passed forth between the tall stone gate-posts as
uncertain as the wandering Arabs where our tent might next be pitched.
Providence took me by the hand, and--an oddity of dispensation which,
I trust, there is no irreverence in smiling at--has led me, as the
newspapers announce while I am writing, from the Old Manse into a
custom-house. As a story-teller, I have often contrived strange
vicissitudes for my imaginary personages, but none like this.

The treasure of intellectual gold which I hoped to find in our
secluded dwelling had never come to light. No profound treatise of
ethics, no philosophic history, no novel even, that could stand
unsupported on its edges. All that I had to show, as a man of
letters, were these, few tales and essays, which had blossomed out
like flowers in the calm summer of my heart and mind. Save editing
(an easy task) the journal of my friend of many years, the African
Cruiser, I had done nothing else. With these idle weeds and withering