from the top, and clamber up ourselves.  The guide was very intelligent, and pointed out the lakes, Windermere, Coniston; and the mountains, Helvellyn, Skiddaw, and Saddleback; but at one time he spoke a name that I couldn’t understand, and forgetting that I was in England and not in America, I asked him to spell it.  He replied, ‘Theys call it so always.’  He did not fail, however, to ask questions like a Yankee, if he couldn’t spell like one.  ’Which way be ye coming?’—­’From America.’—­’Ye’ll be going to Scotland like?’—­’Yes.’—­’Ye’ll be spending much money before ye are home again.’

“When we were quite on top of the mountain I asked what the white glimmering was in the distance, and he said it was, what I supposed, an arm of the sea.

“The shadows of the flying clouds were very pretty falling on the hills around us, and the villages in the valleys beneath looked like white dots on the green.

“Sunday, Sept. 20, 1857.  We have been to see Miss Southey to-day.  I sent the letter which Mrs. Airy gave me yesterday, and with it a note saying that I would call to-day if convenient.

“Miss Southey replied at once, saying that she should be happy to see me.  She lives in a straggling, irregular cottage, like most of the cottages around Keswick, but beautifully situated, though far from the lake.

“Southey himself lived at Greta Hall, a much finer place, for many years, but he never owned it, and the gentleman who bought it will permit no one to see it.

“Miss Southey’s house is overgrown with climbing plants, has windows opening to the ground, and is really a summer residence, not a good winter home.

“When Southey, in his decline, married a second wife, the family scattered, and this daughter, the only unmarried one, left him.

“We were shown into a pleasant parlor comfortably furnished, especially with books and engravings, portraits of Southey, Wordsworth, and others.

“Miss Southey soon came down; she is really pretty, having the fresh English complexion and fair hair.  She seems to be a very simple, pleasant person; chatty, but not too much so.  She is much engrossed by the care of three of her brother’s children, an old aunt, and a servant, who, having been long in the family, has become a dependant.  Miss Southey spoke at once of the Americans whom she had known, Ticknor being one.

“The old aunt asked after a New York lady who had visited Southey at Greta Hall, but her niece reminded her that it must have been before I was born!

“Miss Southey said that her father felt that he knew as many Americans as Englishmen, and that she wanted very much to go to America.  I told her that she would be in danger of being ‘lionized;’ she said, ’Oh, I should like that, for of course it is gratifying to know how much my father was valued there.”

“I asked after the children, and Miss Southey said that the little boy had called out to her, ’Oh!  Aunt Katy, the Ameriky ladies have come!