Willis’s position in Boston was in some respects a difficult one. His family connection were plain, good folks, not “in society,”--not, at least, in the literary society, which was Unitarian, or in the so-called aristocratic society, which was mainly either Unitarian or Episcopalian. He himself was socially ambitious, and these were the circles which he wished to frequent. “The pale of Unitarianism,” he wrote, “is the limit of gentility.” He was a great favorite with Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis, the “lady autocrat” and leader of the _ton_ in the Puritan capital for many years. He was constantly at her house when she was in town, and was invited to be one of her party when she went to Saratoga in the summer. Nor was this a passing fancy with Mrs. Otis, but stood the test of time and separation. She made him a long visit at Idlewild during the latter years of his life. But the Park Street Church people, among whom he had been brought up, looked askance upon his fashionable associations. The old stories of his college dissipations were revived, while rumors of his Boston irregularities reached the ears of his New Haven acquaintances. Willis himself took no notice of these slanders, but they were warmly resented by his friends. His brother-in-law, Joseph Jenkins, wrote to Mr. D. W. Whiting of New Haven: “Nat is a good fellow. He is not dissipated in any way; nor traveling the Tartarean turnpike, as the good New Haven people suppose. He is attending to his magazine, and doing his duty as well as any of us.” Though Willis did not make the impression of a man of very scrupulous morality, he was certainly not given to any serious dissipations. It was not in his temperament to run into physical excesses. His senses were delicate, and he always respected them. He never, for example, used tobacco; he was never a hard drinker. In youth he affected a moderate conviviality and had an æsthetic liking for champagne. In middle age he was accustomed to mix a little spirit with his water, expressing a horror for the pure element, on the whimsical ground that it tasted of sinners ever since the flood. In this Boston period, his offenses were probably limited to running up bills at livery stables and inns, with a too sanguine expectation of being able to pay them from the proceeds of his literary work. Edward Beecher, who had been a tutor at Yale during his college course, was at this time pastor of the Park Street Church. Finding himself unwilling to conform his life to the strict rules of that society, Willis called on Mr. Beecher and stated the manner of his supposed conversion in a revival at Andover, and the influences that had induced him to join the church. He said that he was sincere in the act, but was convinced afterward that he was mistaken in his conviction, and that he had not experienced the change that qualified him for church membership; and he requested Mr. Beecher to obtain for him an honorable dismission. Mr.