Warren's engagement commenced so late in the season that Mr. Whitman had but a few outings before another winter shut him in. He had however two or three trips to the river bank, which he enjoyed greatly; all the more because they led to conversations on ships and ocean life. Warren was a fluent and interesting talker, which made him an enviable companion for anyone who, like the poet, was an ardent lover of freedom and the boundless deep. He often referred to Warren as his "sailor boy," and said that he was of much service to him when he was at a loss about the names of different parts of a ship. The young "sailor boy" had a vein of poetry in his own composition, and although he might not be qualified to weigh the bard's words and their import in the same scale with some others, he got a clear insight into their meaning. The sick man had his ups and downs during this winter, but was seldom confined to his bed more than a week at a time. When he was at all able, he was helped downstairs to sit by the window. He spent more time in the kitchen with Mrs. Davis, and took a lively interest in anything she might be doing; he talked to the birds, made a playmate of the cat, had fellowship with the dog--in short his home life resembled that of any old man in his own home and with his own kin. He would read and write a little at a time, or glance over his papers, but there was a perceptible falling off in all ways, and his domestic life became more and more dear to him; it had no jars, ran smoothly along, and was to him his world. He was still just as inflexible about having his own way. However, it had so long been a part of his housekeeper's life to yield to this, that he seldom had to insist upon anything. He would usually retire early now, though this was not a stated rule. He might be in bed by eight o'clock, or up until midnight, and he was as ingenious as ever in making work for other people. As his massage was to be the last thing before sleep, Warren could not calculate upon his own doings for a single evening. He might go out before dark, make a call or do an errand, then hasten home to wait up two or three hours or even longer; or on going out and remaining but a little beyond eight, would on his return find his patient in bed groaning, and saying that he had been suffering severely for his rubbing, or "pummelling," as he called it. Suffice it to say he was as exacting with his willing nurse as he had always been with his faithful housekeeper. During the two and a half years that Warren was with him, he had but a single untrammelled evening, for Mr. Whitman wanted him always near, even when no service was required. And so things jogged on satisfactorily to friends and admirers, but tediously indeed to the young marine.