Fawcett was a great admirer of Darwin, and the famous scientist had a whole-hearted admiration for him, and thought most highly of his work on political economy. While Fawcett was staying with Lord Avebury they started on the tree-shaded lane that leads uphill to Downe, where Darwin lived, but Fawcett sped much too fast for his host, who had taken his arm. The blind man said, ‘I don’t need you to lead me; if you just keep close enough to me to prevent my going into the hedges, I am all right!’ ‘But I don’t do it to guide you,’ replied Lord Avebury, ‘I do it to help myself, you walk so quickly.’ Fawcett was hugely amused, and the blind man continuing thus to lead the sighted, they arrived at Darwin’s, where they had a very merry time. [Sidenote: At Salisbury.] It was a great relaxation and joy for Fawcett when he was able to spend a few days with his beloved family at Salisbury. He often took his work with him, and was forced at times to deny himself to visitors. One morning when he was at work an old lady called who had been his sister’s schoolmistress. When, at luncheon, he heard that she had been there, and had asked for him, but that they had refused to interrupt him, he exclaimed, ‘Oh, why didn’t you call me for a friend?’ Although he knew the old lady but slightly, and she had no claims on him, he was not happy until he had called on her that same afternoon and told her how sorry he was not to have seen her. [Sidenote: The Joy of Gossip.] It is refreshing to find that he was devoted to gossip, and in the home circle at Salisbury he would often ask Mrs. Fawcett pleadingly, ‘Mother, can’t you go out to hook a little news for me?’ and the mother would sally forth in search of the latest village excitement. She had a talent, perhaps inherited by the son, of, to state it conservatively, making the very best of any anecdote; and when she returned to the picturesque stone cottage in the close, where she found her long son toasting himself before the fire in pleasant anticipation of a good dish of fresh gossip, great was their mutual satisfaction. Urged by him ‘to tell it all without interruptions,’ she would relate what she had absorbed with her neighbour’s tea. She knew well how to give the flowery rendering that delighted her son. As the story increased in picturesqueness and interest, Fawcett, who had been bending forward, his lips slightly parted in anticipation of coming smiles, would rock back and forth with sheer glee. As the narrator skilfully made each point he would shout joyously, ‘Bravo, mother! Bravo! go it, mother!’ He would never let any one else retail the village talk. She gave it so much more point. He could also ‘hook news’ for himself, and had a favourite tale culled from a Salisbury gossip. An old dairyman who was a great friend of his announced one day that they had ‘a new, beautiful clergyman at Harnham.’ ‘What kind?’ asked Fawcett. ‘Oh, fine—he goes so terrible high and so terrible low!’