Among the distinguished people of summer Newport at this time were the George Bancrofts, old friends of my mother’s. Every summer we were invited to see Mr. Bancroft’s roses, held to be well-nigh miraculous. There was a tradition that Newport was not a good place for flowers, and beyond the formal blue hydrangeas that fashion demanded, few people made any attempt to grow them. Mr. Bancroft’s roses and artichokes became famous, people were quick to follow the fashion he set, and now Newport is rich in beautiful gardens. In the early seventies my father bought Oak Glen. He had sold our beloved Lawton’s Valley a few years before, partly on account of the endless difficulties of transportation. I think he regretted this lovely place, and partly because my mother grieved so for it, bought the small estate of five acres a little higher up on the stream that runs through the valley. He improved the property and built a large addition to the house, where he spent the last summers of his life. As long as she lived my mother made Oak Glen her summer home, and after her death it passed into our hands. CHAPTER IX SOME PAINTERS AND POETS I would as soon listen to a lecture on Art as to smell music, or to eat the receipt of a plum pudding. W. M. HUNT. William Hunt is the first artist I remember to have known. I have visions of him mounted on a tall hunter, galloping over the Newport beach, and on the Brighton Road, driving a fast trotter in a racing buggy. My clearest early impression, however, is of the day I went with my mother to visit the Hunts at Readville. We were shown into the coach house, a large airy room fragrant of new pine. An easel stood in one corner; opposite was the grand piano; the third corner held a table with a Persian bowl filled with roses; in the fourth, hung saddles and a rack full of riding crops. Mr. Hunt had built his stable before his house, and here the family lived for at least one summer. Mrs. Hunt, tall and graceful in white muslin, with scarlet flowers in her dark hair, came forward to meet my mother, exclaiming, “My dear friend, how glad I am to see you!” Her voice, deep as an organ note, had a peculiar musical timbre. Each of the Hunt children occupied a box stall fitted up as a bedroom. They made me welcome and took me to see the farm. It was a hot July day; Mr. Hunt had left his work to lend a hand to the haymakers. He stood on the top of a fragrant load, vigorously pitching hay into the loft. He had thrown off his coat and worked in his shirt sleeves. He wore a soft felt hat and a scarlet sash like an Italian _vignajuolo’s_. I saw his keen face, with the hawklike aristocratic nose and piercing eyes, through a storm of long gray beard and yellow hay as he worked feverishly, while hardly brighter than his eyes, the big diamond on his finger flashed in the sun.