Mrs. William Rathbone sent her carriage to take us to Green Bank. The floors of the halls are almost invariably pavements of stone, sometimes in colored mosaic. . . . By and by came Mr. Rathbone,--a very animated, upright, facetious old gentleman, who seems to enjoy life and his millions quite serenely. He is a person of great energy, and full of benevolence, and the fountain of many of the great charities of Liverpool. Then came his son, and then a pretty lady, Miss Stuart; remarkably pretty she was. We were summoned to tea by what I at first thought was a distant band of music; but I believe it was an East Indian gong, merely stirred into a delicate melody. Tea was at one end of the table, and coffee at the other; and old Mr. Rathbone presided at the coffee, and Mrs. Thorn at the tea. The house was hung with pictures from ceiling to floor, every room I entered. In walking all round the grounds before tea, we came upon a fine view of the Welsh mountains over the sunny slopes; for it proved the loveliest afternoon, though in the morning it rained straight down. Mrs. Thorn spoke to me with great fervor of "The Scarlet Letter." She said that no book ever produced so powerful an effect upon her. She was obliged to put it away when half through, to quiet the tumultuous excitement it caused in her. She said she felt as if each word in it was the only word that ought to be used, and the wholeness, the unity, the perfection of art amazed her. . . . The Chamber of Commerce wished to pay their respects to Mr. Hawthorne; but Mr. Hawthorne could not receive a cloud of gentlemen at our parlor there, unless they had all "stood upon their dignity," as the witty Miss Lynch suggested that Mr. Hawthorne should. The President of the Chamber was a Mr. Barber, and, behold, when we came out to Rockferry he called again, and invited us to dine at Poulton Hall, his country-seat at Bebbington, on this side of the Mersey, where he resides with his two maiden sisters. He came for us in his beautiful carriage,--a chariot it was, with a coachman as straight as a lightning-rod,--and off we bowled to Poulton Hall. [My mother's inexperience concerning splendid effects in luxurious life led her to look upon them in a naive, though perfectly composed manner. One is reminded of the New Adam and Eve, and one is glad that the patient objects of time-honored beauty had found surprise at last.] It is four hundred years old; and there we came upon unspoiled nature, as well as elaborate art. It is an enchanting spot, with a lawn shaded by ancient oaks and other forest trees; but green fields beyond and around that had never been trimmed and repressed into thick velvet. The Hall had belonged to the Greens, and the history of it is full of ghost stories and awful tragedies. We entered a hall, and by the ancient oaken staircase reposed upon the carpet a fox, in a fine attitude, with erect head and brilliant eyes,--really a splendid specimen of a creature.