White Pigeon does not call herself an artist—­she only copies pictures in the Louvre and gives lessons.  “Not being able to paint, I give lessons,” she once said to me.  The first pictures she copied were sold to kind gentlemen who make many wagons at South Bend, Indiana; other pictures went to men who have interests at Ivorydale; and some have gone to the mill-owner at Ypsilanti, for the mill-owner is interested in art, as all patrons of the “Hum Journal” know.

White Pigeon lived at Paris because one must needs live somewhere, and rich Americans sometimes send her their daughters to “finish.”  That was what took her over to the Lake District—­she was traveling with two young women from Grand Rapids.  And so these three women were doing Great Britain, and White Pigeon was acting as courier, chaperone and instructor.

“I need ‘finish,’” I suggested in one of the long pauses.

“I was just going to suggest it,” said the lady.

“You say you are going to Southey’s old home tomorrow—­may I go, too?” I ventured.

And the answer was, “Of course—­if you will promise not to work me up into copy.”

I promised.

I found lodgings that night at “Nab Cottage.”  Being well recommended, the landlady did not hesitate, but gave me the best accommodations her house afforded.

Hartley Coleridge does not live at “Nab Cottage” now—­a moss-covered slab marks his resting-place up at the Grasmere Churchyard, and only a step away in a very straight row are similar old headstones that token the graves of William, Dorothy and Mary Wordsworth.  Hartley Coleridge had most of the weaknesses of his father, and only a few of his better traits.  Yet Southey brought up the children of Coleridge and gave them just as good advantages as he did his own.

“It is not ‘advantages’ that make great men—­it is disadvantages!” said White Pigeon.  We were eating breakfast at the table set out under the arbor, back of the Coleridge cottage—­Grace, Myrtle, White Pigeon and I.

Grace and Myrtle were the Grand Rapids girls, and fine girls, too—­pink and twenty, with diaries and autograph-fans.  Girls of that age are charming, but they only interest me as do beautiful kittens or colts.  Women do not become wise or discreet until they are past thirty.  White Pigeon was past thirty.

We took the stage that morning at nine o’clock for Keswick.  The stage started from the Red Lion Inn.  It is a great event—­the starting of a four-horse stage.  The guests came out, and so did the boots, and chamber-maids and waiters, and the cook came also.  They stood in line and bade the parting guests godspeed, and all the guests were supposed to express gratitude tangibly.  The landlady was busy, flying about like a Plymouth Rock hen with a brood of ducks.  She saw me handing up the pink-and-white Grace and Myrtle and the dignified, tailor-made White Pigeon, and she came out and apologized profusely for not having had room to accommodate me the night before.