While we often took a drive on Sunday afternoon, I went with the feeling that it was not quite right, so strong was the influence of the prevalent opinion in the community. My father liked to have us read aloud from the Bible on Sunday evening, and we often did so while living in South Boston. The friends of the family found it pleasant and convenient to come to high tea on that day, so that at “Green Peace” we often had a tableful of guests. After the removal to Boston these Sunday teas developed into evening receptions of a pleasant and informal character. For these our mother was duly taken to task by a lady who held the old-fashioned view of the day. In spite of this rebuke our mother continued serenely on her way. To entertain her friends was as essential to her happiness as to read and study. My father once said that if she were alone on a desert island, with one old negro, she would manage to have a party! It had, indeed, required effort on her part, and on that of her friends, to have entertainments in South Boston. At No. 13 Chestnut Street it was much easier. Among the pleasant people who came there were William Hunt, the artist, and his wife. Her handsome and intelligent face lit up with interest and animation as she talked. I remember a little dinner at the Hunt house where my mother and I were the only guests. Mr. Hunt told us various anecdotes of the French circus—then known as the Hippodrome; of an old woman of eighty who still danced on the tight rope. He showed us how the little old bowed figure looked as she came forward to take her part in the performance. He related, too, the story of two men, one standing on the top of a tall staff, the second performing on a tight rope attached to it. One day, as the latter was testing the rope, it snapped in two! He never loosened his grasp on his balance-pole, never lost his erect position, falling, splendid as Lucifer, through the fifty or more feet of air, till his feet struck the ground. Both legs were broken. Among the interesting guests at No. 13 Chestnut Street were Celia Thaxter and her husband. She was handsome and looked like the woman of spirit that she undoubtedly was. What she said I cannot, alas! remember. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was in those days the most brilliant and delightful of talkers. Not only did he talk without effort, but it seemed to require an effort on his part to maintain silence. His very mouth looked as if it were ready to overflow into brilliant conversation of its own accord, and one fancied that he was obliged to exercise a certain restraint over it.