"But," he added, "I am sure you will be very soon in no condition to miss me,--especially as I leave behind that excellent representative"--pointing to a basket of uncorked bottles which stood in a corner. "Then you know you are just as much at home in this house as I am. You can call for what you like. Don't be alarmed--I mean on _my_ account. I abandon to you, without reserve, all my best wines, my credit with the house, and my reputation to boot. Make free with them all, I beg of you--and if you don't go home till morning, I wish you a merry night of it." It is to be hoped that Prescott was not quite accurately reported, and that he did not speak that little sentence, "Don't be alarmed," which may have been characteristic of a New Englander, but which certainly would have induced a different sort of guests to leave the place at once. If he did say it, however, it was somewhat in keeping with the tactlessness which he occasionally showed. The habit of frank speech, which had made him a nuisance as a boy, never quite left him, and he frequently blurted out things which were of the sort that one would rather leave unsaid. His wife would often nod and frown at him on these occasions, and then he would always make the matter worse by asking her, with the greatest innocence, what the matter was. Mr. Ogden records an amusing instance of Prescott's _naïveté_ during his last visit to England. Conversing about Americanisms with an English lady of rank, she criticised the American use of the word "snarl" in the sense of disorder. "Why, surely," cried Prescott, "you would say that your ladyship's hair is in a snarl!" Which, unfortunately, it was--a fact that by no means soothed the lady's temper at being told so. There was a certain boyishness about Prescott, however, which usually enabled him to carry these things off without offence, because they were obviously so natural and so unpremeditated. His boyishness took other forms which were more generally pleasing. One evidence of it was his fondness for such games as blindman's buff and puss-in-the-corner, in which he used to engage with all the zest of a child, even after he had passed his fiftieth year, and in which the whole household took part, together with any distinguished foreigners who might be present. Another youthful trait was his readiness to burst into song on all occasions, even in the midst of his work. In fact, just before beginning any animated bit of descriptive writing he would rouse himself up by shouting out some ballad that had caught his fancy; so that strangers visiting his house would often be amused when, from the grave historian's study, there came forth the sonorous musical appeal, "O give me but my Arab steed!" Boyish, too, was his racy talk, full of colloquialisms and bits of Yankee dialect, with which also his personal correspondence was peppered. Even though his rather prim biographer, Ticknor, has gone over