On the 7th of June the family left Paris for London.  A first visit to England—­

    That precious stone set in the silver sea—­

is always an event full of interest to children of the New England Puritans.  The “sceptered isle” is still in a sense their mother-country, and a thousand ancestral ties attract them to its shores.  There is no other spot on earth where so many lines of their history, domestic and public, meet.  And in London, what familiar memories are for them associated with almost every old street and lane and building!

The winter and spring of 1860 had been cold, wet and cheerless well-nigh beyond endurance; and the summer proved hardly less dreary.  It rained nearly every day, sometimes all day and all night; the sun came out only at long intervals, and then often but for a moment; the atmosphere, much of the time, was like lead; the moon and stars seemed to have left the sky; even the English landscape, in spite of its matchless verdure and beauty, put on a forbidding aspect.  All nature, indeed, was under a cloud.  This, added to her frail health, made the summer a very trying one to Mrs. Prentiss, and yet it afforded her not a little real delight.  Some of her pleasantest days in Europe were spent in England.  The following extracts are from a little journal kept by her in London: 

June 10th.—­We went this morning to hear Dr. Hamilton, and were greatly edified by the sermon, which was on the text:  “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.”  In the afternoon we decided to go to Westminster Abbey.  It began to rain soon after we got out, and we had a two miles’ walk through the mud.  The old abbey looked as much like its picture as it could, but pictures can not give a true idea of the grandeur of such a building.  We were a little late, and every seat was full and many were standing, as we had to do through the whole service.  The sermon struck me as a very ordinary affair, though it was delivered by a lord.  But the music was so sweet, performed for aught I know by angel—­for the choir was invisible—­and we stood surrounded by such monuments and covered by such a roof, that we were not quite throwing away our time.  Albert B——­ dined with us, and in the evening, with one accord, we went to hear Dr. Hamilton again.  We had good seats and heard a most beautiful as well as edifying discourse on the first verses of the 103d Psalm.  Some of the images were very fine, and the whole tone of the sermon was moderate, sensible, and serious.  I use these words advisedly, for I had an impression that he was a flowery, popular man whom I should not relish.  At the close of the service a little prayer-meeting of half an hour was held, and we came home satisfied with our first English Sunday, feeling some of our restless cravings already quieted as only contact with God’s own people could quiet them.

11th.—­Went to see the Crystal Palace.  It proved a fine day, and we took M. with us.  None of us felt quite well, but we enjoyed this new and beautiful scene for all that.  It is a little fairy land.