measure, recuperated and strengthened by her enthusiasm. In the end, as is evidenced by Our Old Home and The Marble Faun, he got a good deal out of Europe. On the other hand, he seemed to think himself justified in avoiding persons as much as he decently might, even the most distinguished; and if he had not been a consul, and a writer of books that had been read, I doubt if he would have formed any acquaintances during his foreign residence, and he would thereby have missed one of the greatest and most enduring pleasures of memory that he took back with him. For no one cared more for a friend, or was more stimulated and emancipated by one, than he. It may have been that he had passed the age of youthful buoyancy, of appetite for novelties; that he had begun to lack initiative. "I have seen many specimens of mankind," he wrote down, in a mood of depression, in one of his note-books, "but come to the conclusion that there is little variety among them all." That was scarcely a full thought, and he would never have let it pass in one of his considered books. He made and published many other remarks on similar subjects of quite an opposite tenor, and these more truly represented his true feeling. But he did flag a little, once in a while, and the deep and abiding love of England which was his final sentiment had somewhat the appearance of having been forced upon him against his inclination. We may surmise that he feared disappointment more than he craved gratification. [IMAGE: FRANCIS BANNOCH] From Liverpool we explored the strangeness of the land in all directions. Bennoch or Bright sometimes took off my father alone; sometimes my father and mother would go with me, leaving my sisters at home with the governess. Once in a while we all went together, as, for example, to the Isle of Man or to Rhyl. So far as practicable, we children were made acquainted with the literature of places we were to visit before going there. Thus, before journeying to the Lakes and Scotland, I had by heart a good deal of Wordsworth, Southey, Burns, and Walter Scott, and was able, standing amid the lovely uproar of Lodore, to shout out the story of how the water comes down there; and, again, on the shores of Loch Katrine, at sunset, after spending a long hour on the little white beach opposite Ellen's Isle, I ran along the road in advance of my parents, and, climbing a cliff, saw the breadth of the lake below me, golden under the sunset clouds, and very aptly recited, as they came up, Sir Walter's descriptive verse: "One burnished sheet of living gold, Loch Katrine lay, beneath him rolled!"