But a stranger incident still occurred as I stood there. The sound of a latch-key was heard in the hall-door, and a figure, that I at once recognised as my father’s, in a white flannel suit, seemed to enter and look smilingly at me. It was only a momentary mental vision, but it was wonderfully vivid; and I then remembered what I had utterly forgotten—forgotten certainly for forty years—that our father would sometimes remain late at his sugar-house, and come home in the white flannel suit worn in the heated rooms of the refinery, letting himself into the house with a rather peculiar latch-key. Far clearer and more varied recollections are, however, connected with the house in Nelson Street, to which we moved in 1824, and whence the family emigrated to New York in 1832. This comfortable family home, made by throwing two houses together, with its walled-in courtyard leading to the sugar refinery and my father’s offices, was our town residence for eight very happy years. Here the group of brothers and sisters grew up together, taking daily walks with our governess into the lovely environs of the then small town. We became familiar with St. Vincent’s Rocks and the Hot Wells, with Clifton Down and Leigh Woods, which were not built on then. The Suspension Bridge across the Avon was a thing of the future, and Cook’s Folly stood far away on the wild Durdham Down. In another direction, Mother Pugsley’s field, with its healing spring, leading out of Kingsdown Parade, was a favourite walk—for passing down the fine avenue of elms we stood at the great iron gates of Sir Richard Vaughan’s place, to admire the peacocks, and then passed up the lane towards Redland, where violets grew on the grassy banks and natural curiosities could be collected. All these neighbourhoods were delightfully free and open. Our governess encouraged our natural tastes, and the children’s pennies were often expended in purchasing the landscape stones and Bristol diamonds offered for sale on Clifton Down. In still another direction, the ‘Brook,’ leading through pleasant fields to the distant Beaufort woods, had a never-ending charm. Daily, and often twice a day, the group of children with their governess wandered to these pleasant spots. In the summer time Weston-super-Mare and Clevedon gave endless seaside delights, and furnished a charming picture-gallery through all the subsequent wanderings of later life. During the last years of our Bristol life, a house at Olveston, about nine miles from town, was rented as a summer residence. This afforded fresh delight. Not only was the neighbourhood beautiful, and interesting with views of the Welsh mountains seen across the Severn from a high common near by, and the remains of an old abbey where wolves’ heads were formerly taken as tribute still remained; but the large, well-stocked garden was separated from the orchard by a rapid stream, over which two tiny bridges were thrown.