To this lady, then, when the queen was sending her invitations, Miss Hamilton addressed a fac-simile note, commanding her attendance in the character of a Babylonian; and to another, a Miss Blague, who was extremely blonde with a most insipid tint, she sent several yards of the palest yellow ribbon, requesting her to wear it in her hair.  The jest, which succeeded admirably, was characteristic of Miss Hamilton’s playful disposition.

During a season at Tunbridge Wells, and another a Bath, the brilliant Chevalier, admired by all and more successful than ever at play, prosecuted his suit.  Then, almost all the merry courtier-lovers fell at once into the bonds of marriage.  The beautiful Miss Stewart married the Duke of Richmond; the invincible little Jermyn fell to a conceited lady from the provinces; Lord Rochester took a melancholy heiress; George Hamilton married the lovely Miss Jennings; and, lastly, the Chevalier de Grammont, as the reward of a constancy which he had never shown before, and which he has never practised since, became the possessor of the charming Miss Hamilton.

* * * * *

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Our Old Home

On the election of Franklin Pierce as President of the United States, Hawthorne was appointed consul at Liverpool, whither he sailed in 1853, resigning in 1857 to go to Rome, and returning to America four years later.  “Our Old Home” is the fruit of this period spent in England.  It was written at Concord, and first appeared serially during 1863 in the “Atlantic Monthly.”  Although “Our Old Home” gave no little offence to English readers, nevertheless it exhibits the author as keenly observant of their characteristics and life.  (See FICTION.)

I.—­Consular Experiences

The Liverpool Consulate of the United States, in my day, was located in Washington Buildings, in the neighbourhood of some of the oldest docks.  Here in a stifled and dusky chamber I spent wearily four good years of my existence.  Hither came a great variety of visitors, principally Americans, but including almost every other nationality, especially the distressed and downfallen ones.  All sufferers, or pretended ones, in the cause of Liberty sought the American Consulate in hopes of bread, and perhaps to beg a passage to the blessed home of Freedom.

My countrymen seemed chiselled in sharper angles than I had imagined at home.  They often came to the Consulate in parties merely to see how their public servant was getting on with his duties.

No people on earth have such vagabond habits as ourselves.  A young American will deliberately spend all his resources in an aesthetic peregrination of Europe.  Often their funds held out just long enough to bring them to the doors of my Consulate.  Among these stray Americans I remember one ragged, patient old man, who soberly affirmed that he had been wandering about England more than a quarter of a century, doing his utmost to get home, but never rich enough to pay his passage.