and hills after sundown.  They were very anxious to lodge at the picturesque old farm, ten minutes’ walk beyond Brookbank, but all available room was then occupied.  However, George Eliot would often visit the farmer’s wife, and, sitting on a grassy bank just beside the kitchen door, would discuss the growth of fruit and the quality of butter in a manner so quiet and simple the good country folks were astonished, expecting very different conversation from the great novelist.  The farmer was employed to drive them two or three times a week.  They occasionally visited Tennyson, whose home is only three miles distant, though a rather tedious drive, since it is up hill nearly all the way.  George Eliot did not enjoy the ride much, for the farmer told us that, ’withal her being such a mighty clever body,—­she were very nervous in a carriage—­allays wanted to go on a smooth road, and seemed dreadful feared of being thrown out.’  George Eliot was writing Middlemarch during her summer at Brookbank, and the term for which they had the cottage expired before they wished to return to London.  The Squire was away at the time, so they procured permission to use his house during the remainder of the visit.  In speaking of them he said, ’I visited Mr. and Mrs. Lewes several times before they went back to town, and found the authoress a very agreeable woman, both in manner and appearance; but her mind was evidently completely absorbed in her work; she seemed to have no time for anything but writing from morning till night.  Her hand could hardly convey her thoughts to paper fast enough.  It was an exceptionally hot summer, and yet through it all Mrs. Lewes would have artificial heat placed at her feet to keep up the circulation.  Why, one broiling day I came home worn out, longing for a gray sky and a cool breeze, and on going into the garden I found her sitting there, her head just shaded by a deodara on the lawn, writing away as usual.  I expostulated with her for letting the midday sun pour down on her like that.  ‘Oh,’ she replied, ’I like it.  To-day is the first time I have felt warm this summer.’  So I said no more, and went my way.’  And thus nearly all we could learn about George Eliot was that she loved to bask in the sun and liked green peas.  She visited some of the cottagers, but only those living in secluded places, who knew nothing of her.  Just such people as these she used in her graphic and realistic sketches of peasant life.  With regard to the surrounding country, George Eliot said that it pleased her more than any she knew of in England.”

In these summer retreats she continued steadily at her work, and she greatly delighted in the quiet and rest.  Other summers were spent at Witley, in the same county, where the fine scenery, lovely drives and wide-reaching views from the hill-tops were to her a perpetual delight.  At this place a house was bought, and there was a project of giving up the London residence and of visiting the city only for occasional relaxation.  This project was not carried out, for soon after their return from Witley in the autumn of 1878, Mr. Lewes was taken ill, and died in November.  His death was a great blow to Mrs. Lewes, and he was deeply mourned, so much so as to seriously impair her health.  The state of her mind at this trying period is well indicated in a letter written to Prof.  David Kaufmann.