"Considering that Mrs. Moulton goes to Europe the last of every April, not returning till late in October, it would seem natural for her to sing of 'larks and nightingales,' since she must hear them both sing in the English May. Do, dear Colonel Higginson, permit her to sing of them, though they are not native birds, since in the magic of her art she almost makes us hear them too." Miss Guiney, laughing over these comments, turned to Mrs. Moulton. "Godmam," she asked, "did you ever see a nightingale?" "Why, yes, Louise; plenty of them." "Where?" "Why, anywhere. Out here, I suppose," replied the elder poet, dreamily glancing from the windows of her morning-room into the tree-tops of Rutland Square. "In London, too, I believe," she added, rather vaguely. "Singing in Trafalgar Square, godmam," rejoined the younger poet mischievously. The informal loiterers in the morning-room were never weary of asking Mrs. Moulton's impressions of London writers. "You knew Thomas Hardy well?" someone would ask. "I knew him. I even venture to think of him as a friend--at least as a very friendly acquaintance. I cared deeply for many of his books before I had the pleasure of meeting him; and I quite adored 'The Return of the Native.'" "And you liked the author as well as the books?" "I think no one could know Thomas Hardy and not like him. He is sympathetic, genial, unaffected, altogether delightful; somewhat pessimistic, to be sure, and with a vein of sadness--a minor chord in his psalm of life: but all the same with a keen sense of fun. I remember I was telling him once about an American admirer of his. It was at a party at Hardy's own house, and a few people were listening to our talk. The American of whose praise I spoke was Charles T. Copeland, of Harvard, who had just reviewed 'Tess,' in the _Atlantic Monthly_. Mr. Hardy listened kindly, and then he said, 'What you say is a consolation, just now.' I knew some good fun lurked behind the quaint humor of his smile. 'Why just now?' I asked. 'Oh, I dined, two nights ago, at the house of a Member of Parliament. It was by way of being a political dinner; but, as "Tess" was just out, one and another spoke of it--kindly enough. Finally one lady, two or three seats away from me, leaned forward. Her clear voice commanded every one's attention. "Well, Mr. Hardy," she said, "these people are complaining that you had Tess hanged in the last chapter of your book. _That_ is not what I complain of. I complain because you did not have all your characters hanged, for they all deserved it!" Don't you think, Mrs. Moulton, that after that I need consolation from somewhere?'" Many of her reminiscences which entered into the talk have been told in her newspaper letters, and need not be repeated here, but they took on a fresh vitality from the living voice and the gracious, unaffected manner.