I had lodgings in the village, and drove out mornings for the dictations, but often came out again afoot on pleasant afternoons; for he was not much occupied with social matters, and there was opportunity for quiet, informing interviews.  There was a woods path to the Upton place, and it was a walk through a fairyland.  A part of the way was through such a growth of beech timber as I have never seen elsewhere:  tall, straight, mottled trees with an undergrowth of laurel, the sunlight sifting through; one found it easy to expect there storybook ladies, wearing crowns and green mantles, riding on white palfreys.  Then came a more open way, an abandoned grass-grown road full of sunlight and perfume; and this led to a dim, religious place, a natural cathedral, where the columns were stately pine-trees branching and meeting at the top:  a veritable temple in which it always seemed that music was about to play.  You crossed a brook and climbed a little hill, and pushed through a hedge into a place more open, and the house stood there among the trees.

The days drifted along, one a good deal like another, except, as the summer deepened, the weather became warmer, the foliage changed, a drowsy haze gathered along the valleys and on the mountain-side.  He sat more often now in a large rocking-chair, and generally seemed to be looking through half-dosed lids toward the Monadnock heights, that were always changing in aspect-in color and in form—­as cloud shapes drifted by or gathered in those lofty hollows.  White and yellow butterflies hovered over the grass, and there were some curious, large black ants—­the largest I have ever seen and quite harmless—­that would slip in and out of the cracks on the veranda floor, wholly undisturbed by us.  Now and then a light flutter of wind would come murmuring up from the trees below, and when the apple-bloom was falling there would be a whirl of white and pink petals that seemed a cloud of smaller butterflies.

On June 1st I find in my note-book this entry: 

Warm and pleasant.  The dictation about Grant continues; a great privilege to hear this foremost man, of letters review his associations with that foremost man of arms.  He remained seated today, dressed in white as usual, a large yellow pansy in his buttonhole, his white hair ruffled by the breeze.  He wears his worn morocco slippers with black hose; sits in the rocker, smoking and looking out over the hazy hills, delivering his sentences with a measured accuracy that seldom calls for change.  He is speaking just now of a Grant dinner which he attended where Depew spoke.  One is impressed with the thought that we are looking at and listening to the war-worn veteran of a thousand dinners—­the honored guest of many; an honored figure of all.  Earlier, when he had been chastising some old offender, he added, “However, he’s dead, and I forgive him.”  Then, after a moment’s reflection, “No; strike that last sentence out.”