“So if we ordered tea for five, and six partook of it, he called the waiter and said, ’Six have partaken of the tea, although there was no tea added; to the amount.’

“I told Mr. Hawthorne that a friend of mine, Miss W., desired very much to see him, as she admired him very much.  He said, ’Don’t let her see me, let her keep her little lamp burning.’

“He was a sad man; I could never tell why.  I never could get at anything of his religious views.

“He was wonderfully blest in his family.  Mrs. Hawthorne almost worshipped him.  She was of a very serious and religious turn of mind.

“I dined with them the day that Una was sixteen years old.  We drank her health in cold water.  Mr. Hawthorne said, ’May you live happily, and be ready to go when you must.’

“He joined in the family talk very pleasantly.  One evening we made up a story.  One said, ‘A party was in Rome;’ another said, ’It was a pleasant day;’ another said, ‘They took a walk.’  It came to Hawthorne’s turn, and he said, ‘Do put in an incident;’ so Rosa said, ’Then a bear jumped from the top of St. Peter’s!’ The story went no further.

“I was with the family when they first went to St. Peter’s.  Hawthorne turned away saying, ‘The St. Peter’s of my imagination was better.’

“I think he could not have been well, he was so very inactive.  If he walked out he took Rosa, then a child of six, with him.  He once came with her to my room, but he seemed tired from the ascent of the stairs.  I was on the fifth floor.

“I have been surprised to see that he made severe personal remarks in his journal, for in the three months that I knew him I never heard an unkind word; he was always courteous, gentle, and retiring.  Mrs. Hawthorne said she took a wifely pride in his having no small vices.  Mr. Hawthorne said to Miss S., ’I have yet to find the first fault in Mrs. Hawthorne.’

“One day Mrs. Hawthorne came to my room, held up an inkstand, and said, ‘The new book will be begun to-night.’

“This was ‘The Marble Faun.’  She said, ’Mr. Hawthorne writes after every one has gone to bed.  I never see the manuscript until it is what he calls clothed’....  Mrs. H. says he never knows when he is writing a story how the characters will turn out; he waits for them to influence him.

“I asked her if Zenobia was intended for Margaret Fuller, and she said, ‘No;’ but Mr. Hawthorne admitted that Margaret Fuller seemed to be around him when he was writing it.

“London, August.  We went out for our first walk as soon as breakfast was over, and we walked on Regent street for hours, looking in at the shop windows.  The first view of the street was beautiful, for it was a misty morning, and we saw its length fade away as if it had no end.  I like it that in our first walk we came upon a crowd standing around ‘Punch.’  It is a ridiculous affair, but as it is as much a ‘peculiar institution’ as is Southern slavery, I stopped and listened, and after we came into the house Miss S. threw out some pence for them.  We rested after the shop windows of Regent street, took dinner, and went out again, this time to Piccadilly.