His liking for New England country life led him to maintain in addition to his Boston house, at 55 Beacon Street, two other places of residence. One was at Nahant, then, as now, a very popular resort in summer. There he had an unpretentious wooden cottage of two stories, with a broad veranda about it, occupying an elevated position at the extremity of a bold promontory which commanded a wide view of the sea. Nahant is famous for its cool--almost too cool--sea-breeze, which even in August so tempers the heat of the sun as to make a shaded spot almost uncomfortably cold. This bracing air Prescott found admirably tonic, and beneficial both to his eye and to his digestion, which was weak. On the other hand, the dampness of the breeze affected unfavourably his tendency to rheumatism, so that he seldom spent more than eight weeks of the year upon the sea-shore. He found also that the reflection of the sun from the water was a thing to be avoided. Therefore, he most thoroughly enjoyed his other country place at Pepperell, where his grandmother had lived. The plain little house, known as "The Highlands," and shaded by great trees, seemed to him his truest home. Here, more than elsewhere, he threw off his cares and gave himself up completely to his drives and rides and walks and social pleasures. The country round about was then well wooded, and Prescott delighted to gallop through the forests and over the rich countryside, every inch of which had been familiar to him since his boyhood days. He felt something of the English landowner's pride in remembering that his modest estate had been in the possession of his family for more than a century and a half--"An uncommon event," he wrote, "among our locomotive people." Behind the house was a lovely shaded walk with a distant view of Mount Monadnock; and here Prescott often strolled while composing portions of his histories before committing them to paper. Beyond the road stood a picturesque cluster of oak trees, making a thick grove which he called "the Fairy Grove," for in it he used to tell his children the stories about elves and gnomes and fairies which delighted them so much.