WOLFVILLE, NOVA SCOTIA, August 21, 1884. MY DEAR FRIEND,--I am moved to write to you from here, where I sit looking out upon the Basin of Minas, and Grand Pré itself, the mud of which latter I have been trying to remove from my dress, though I suppose I ought to let it stay spattered with poetic associations! Yesterday we were taken to drive through the Valley of the Gaspereau, a lovely region, under perfect cultivation,--and so on, over the old dikes of Grand Pré, where we stood upon the site of the old church, and saw the cellar of what was supposed to be the priest’s house, close by the church. The people here think they know where Evangeline’s father lived, and just where Basil the blacksmith had his forge,--so mixed are our illusions with our historic certainties! I find myself believing in Evangeline as a real maiden, one who once lived and suffered on this very soil, and I gathered a daisy and a wild rose for you, which her hand might have plucked, instead of mine, as a memorial of her lost home. Miss J---- and I are stopping at the village doctor’s. Mrs. Fitch, who keeps his house, takes a very few boarders. His orchard is loaded with apples and pears, and his garden opens out on the meadow close upon the first dike built by the French Acadians. We are finding the hottest weather of the season, and are glad not to be in any city just now. We had a pleasant sail to Halifax--the sea as smooth as glass, and so no excuse for sickness. I had friends in Halifax, who took us to the citadel and the park, the latter the finest I ever saw, because left chiefly to nature: just woods of pine and spruce, overlooking the harbor, which I can well believe to be what the Nova Scotians claim for it--the most beautiful harbor in the world. We go the last of the week to Annapolis and Digby, and home by the way of Mt. Desert, which I have never visited. I go from there to Bethel, to spend September,--read my proof--and escape hay-fever--(as I hope!). You are often spoken of here, and by those who wish you would visit the place. The journey is a long one, and I suppose, as I tell them, that you would not feel like taking it. But there is a charm about the people and the region which can only be felt by being here,--everybody seems very intelligent, and very hospitable,--no extreme poverty anywhere, that I can see. Thine always, LUCY LARCOM. TO PHILLIPS BROOKS. 12 CONCORD SQUARE, March 26, 1885. DEAR MR. BROOKS,--I called at the chapel yesterday afternoon, but others were waiting to see you, and it was getting late in the day, so I did not stay. I had, indeed, no good excuse for taking your time; but it would have been a great pleasure to speak to you, after my winter’s imprisonment with illness.