but after securing sufficient time for consideration, they said that she must judge for herself; and there were fine qualities in Mr. Quillinan which could not but win their affection and substantial regard.  His first wife, a friend of Dora Wordsworth’s, was carried out of the house in which she had just been confined, from fire in the middle of the night; she died from the shock; and she died recommending her husband and her friend to marry.  Such is the understood history of the case.  After much delay they did marry, and lived near Rydal Mount, where Dora was, as always, the light of the house, as long as she could go to it.  But, after a long and painful decline, she died in 1847.  Her husband followed soon after Wordsworth’s death.  He lies in the family corner of Grasmere churchyard, between his two wives.  This appeared to be the place reserved for Mrs. Wordsworth, so that Dora would lie between her parents.  There seemed now to be no room left for the solitary survivor, and many wondered what would be done; but all had been thought of.  Wordsworth’s grave had been made deep enough for two; and there his widow now rests.

There was much vivid life in them, however clearly the end was approaching, when I first knew them in 1845.  The day after my arrival at a friend’s house, they called on me, excited by two kinds of interest.  Wordsworth had been extremely gratified by hearing, through a book of mine, how his works were estimated by certain classes of readers in the United States; and he and Mrs. Wordsworth were eager to learn facts and opinions about mesmerism, by which I had just recovered from a long illness, and which they hoped might avail in the case of a daughter-in-law, then in a dying state abroad.  After that day, I met them frequently, and was at their house, when I could go.  On occasion of my first visit, I was struck by an incident which explained the ridicule we have all heard thrown on the old poet for a self-esteem which he was merely too simple to hide.  Nothing could be easier than to make a quiz of what he said to me; but to me it seemed delightful.  As he at once talked of his poems, I thought I might; and I observed that he might be interested in knowing which of his poems had been Dr. Channing’s favorite.  Seeing him really interested, I told him that I had not been many hours under Dr. Channing’s roof before he brought me “The Happy Warrior,” which, he said, moved him more than any other in the whole series.  Wordsworth remarked,—­and repeated the remark very earnestly,—­that this was evidently applicable to the piece, “not as a poem, not as fulfilling the conditions of poetry, but as a chain of extremely valuable thoughts.”  Then he repeated emphatically,—­“a chain of extremely valuable thoughts!” This was so true that it seemed as natural for him to say it as Dr. Channing, or any one else.