Elizabeth Peabody makes, upon her return to 'Salem for the winter, an heroic move towards gaining a still more affectionate advantage over the solitaries in Herbert Street. A little smile must have given her face its most piquant expression as she wrote:-- Saturday, November 10, 1838. DEAR LOUISA,--You know I want to knit those little stockings and shoes,--I think I will do it in the course of time at your house,--and would thank you to buy the materials for me, and I will pay you what they cost, when I know what it is. I suppose the four or five evenings which I shall anticipate spending with you (in the course of the winter!) will complete the articles. When Elizabeth wakes, please give her this note and rose and book; and when Nathaniel comes to dinner please give him the note I wrote to him. He said he was going to write to-day, and therefore I should prefer that he should not be interrupted on purpose to read it. We will not interrupt the bird in his song. I wonder what sort of a preparation he finds an evening of whist, for the company of the Muse! Yours ever truly, E. P. PEABODY. It is delightful to picture the commotion in the fernlike seclusion which enveloped the women of the Hawthorne household when this note was opened and read. Squirrels aroused, owls awakened, foxes startled, would have sympathized. Louisa, the only really active member of the trio, wonderfully deft in finest sewing and embroidery, generously willing to labor for all the relatives when illness required, may not have felt faint or fierce. But Mrs. Hawthorne, even in the covert of her chamber, where she chiefly resided, no doubt drew back; and Elizabeth's beautiful eyes must have shone superbly. However, to prove that the trio among the ferns (guarding, as testimony proves, Hawthorne himself with unasked care) could serve the needs of others on occasion, I will insert a little letter of a much earlier date, from Louisa. TO MISS MARY MANNING, RAYMOND, MAINE, CARE OF RICHARD MANNING, ESQ. SALEM, March 3, 1831. MY DEAR AUNT,--Uncle Sammie has returned from Boston, and has taken up his abode for the present at uncle Robert's [his brother, who befriended Hawthorne in his early youth], and is much better than we expected to see him. We should have been glad to have him with us, and would have done everything in our power to make him happy. We are so near that he can at any time command our services and our company. Nathaniel goes in to see him, and I am there a great part of the time. Mother has kept about all winter. There have been worse storms than I ever remember; the roads were absolutely impassable, and the snow-banks almost as high as the house. I would write more, but my time is much taken up now. I remain yours, With much affection, M. L. HATHORNE. That the reluctance to be genial with very genial folk was bravely overcome (to some extent) the ensuing notes prove:--