and left at his locked door, and it was not often that the four inmates of the old Herbert Street mansion met in family circle. He never read his stories aloud to his mother and sisters, as might be imagined from the picture which Mr. Fields draws of the young author reciting his new productions to his listening family; though, when they met, he sometimes read older literature to them. It was the custom in this household for the members to remain very much by themselves: the three ladies were perhaps nearly as rigorous recluses as himself; and, speaking of the isolation which reigned among them, Hawthorne once said, 'We do not even _live_ at our house!' But still the presence of this near and gentle element is not to be underrated, as forming a very great compensation in the cold and difficult morning of his life." Of self-reliant mind, accustomed to solitude and fond of reading, it was not strange that they should have fallen into these habits, which, however peculiarly they may strike others, did not necessarily spring from a morbid disposition, and never prevented the Hawthornes from according a kindly reception to their friends. Nathaniel Hawthorne's own associates were not numerous. There was a good society in the town, for Salem was not, strictly speaking, provincial, but--aided in a degree by the separateness of its situation--retained very much its old independence as a commercial capital. There were people of wealth and cultivation, of good lineage in our simple domestic kind, who made considerable display in their entertainments and were addicted to impressive absences in Paris and London. Among these Hawthorne did not show himself at all. His preference was for individuals who had no pretensions whatever in the social way. Among his friends was one William B. Pike, a carpenter's son, who, after acquiring an ordinary public-school education without passing through the higher grades, adopted his father's trade, became a Methodist class-leader, secondly a disciple of Swedenborg, and at length a successful politician, being appointed Collector of the port of Salem by President Pierce. He is described as having "a strongly marked, benignant face, indicative of intelligence and individuality. He was gray at twenty, and always looked older than his years.... He had a keen sense of the ludicrous, a vivid recollection of localities and incidents, a quick apprehension of peculiarities and traits, and was a most graphic and entertaining narrator."[4] As Mr. James has said: "Hawthorne had a democratic strain in his composition, a relish for the common stuff of human nature. He liked to fraternize with plain people, to take them on their own terms." It was the most natural thing in the world for him to fancy such a man as Pike is represented to have been. His Society in college was the one which displayed a democratic tendency; and, in addition to making friends with persons of this stamp,