It was in October, 1818, that Mrs. Hathorne carried her family to Raymond, to occupy the new house, a dwelling so ambitious, gauged by the primitive community thereabouts, that it gained the title of "Manning's Folly." Raymond is in Cumberland County, a little east of Sebago Lake, and the house, which is still standing, mossy and dismantled, is near what has since been called Radoux's Mills. Though built by Robert Manning, it was purchased afterward by his brother Richard, whose widow married Mr. Radoux, the owner of these mills. Richard Manning's will provided for the establishing of a meeting-house in the neighborhood, and his widow transformed the Folly into a Tabernacle; but, the community ceasing to use it after a few years, it has remained untenanted and decaying ever since, enjoying now the fame of being haunted. Lonely as was the region then, it perhaps had a more lively aspect than at present: A clearing probably gave the inmates of the Folly a clear sweep of vision to the lake; and to the northwest, beyond the open fields that still lie there, frown dark pine slopes, ranging and rising away into "forest-crowned hills; while in the far distance every hue of rock and tree, of field and grove, melts into the soft blue of Mount Washington." This weird and woodsy ground of Cumberland became the nurturing soil of Hawthorne for some years. He stayed only one twelvemonth at Sebago Lake, returning to Salem after that for college preparation. But Brunswick, where his academic years were passed, lies less than thirty miles from the home in the woods, and within the same county: doubtless, also, he spent some of his summer vacations at Raymond. The brooding spell of his mother's sorrow was perhaps even deepened in this favorable solitude. I know not whether the faith of women's hearts really finds an easier avenue to such consecration as this of Mrs. Hathorne's, in Salem, than elsewhere. I happen lately to have heard of a widow in that same neighborhood who has remained bereaved and uncomforted for more than seventeen years. With pathetic energy she spends the long days of summer, in long, incessant walks, sorrow-pursued, away from the dwellings of men. But, however this be, I think this divine and pure devotion to a first love, though it may have impregnated Hawthorne's mind too keenly with the mournfulness of mortality, was yet one of the most cogent means of entirely clarifying the fine spirit which he inherited, and that he in part owes to this exquisite example his marvellous, unsurpassed spirituality. A woman thus true to her highest experience and her purest memories, by living in a sacred communion with the dead, annihilates time and is already set in an atmosphere of eternity. Ah, strong and simple soul that knew not how to hide your grief under specious self-comfortings and maxims of convenience, and so bowed in lifelong prostration before the knowledge of your first, unsullied love, be sure the world will sooner or later