When wider fame and money followed the writing of this poem, the poet was full of tender regret that those he loved best were not here to share. One day he spoke to the writer of his increased income and how he wished that he could have given his sisters what they did not have while they were with him. And again, when some strong wind of praise had swept down upon him, he said to one who had known Elizabeth: “If my sister could have lived to see this day, how happy she would have been!” But he saw “the stars shine through his cypress trees.” To him life broadened more and more. It was given him to learn yet more fully the truth which his labor for the slave had so well prepared him to comprehend. For to him in a deeper sense than ever before those who did God’s will and work in the world were united with him, as with his Master, in a spiritual bond. * * * * * After the death of Elizabeth the poet’s dearest friends hoped that he would marry. He was not a person to whom such a suggestion could be lightly made. Yet one, out of his affection, did hint at this hope. But Whittier’s words shattered the day dream. “No,” he answered, mindful of his frail health. “I have not married a wife. I will not marry a nurse.” XIII The poet’s well-known fondness for young people was not more marked in later life than in his Amesbury days. There was a group of these young people whom he used to call his “boys and girls,” and in whose achievements and successes he felt the greatest interest. His influence over them was not due wholly to that in his character which commanded their admiration, or even to his fun and power of repartee. It came largely from his sympathy with them, his ability to see things from their point of view. And who so well as he brimming over with humor and wit, could enter into and direct their fun? One of this adopted family has recalled when several of them sat in the garden room, each merrily declaring what he or she would do with a fortune, if that would only befall. “I should put thirty thousand dollars in the bank for John G. Whittier,” declared the poet promptly--thirty thousand dollars being at that time a much larger sum than it is today. “And I should buy M---- [the daughter of his married sister and very fond of pretty gowns] ten new dresses!” And he laughed with his listeners. * * * * * To a member of this same group, the one to whom he had given the lilies on the train, he one day made a prediction. She had told him she was going to Centre Harbor, then a famous resort. “Are thee going alone?” he asked her. She was; but she was to meet a cousin there. “Thee’ll lose thy way,” he said. And when she asserted that she never did that, he persisted, “Thee’ll lose thy trunk at Dover.” And she actually did! * * * * * It is to Whittier that Lucy Larcom refers in her poem about the child,