It was the death of his parents that led him in the last years of his own life to abandon this home which he so dearly loved. The memories which associated it with them were painful to him after they had gone. He missed their faces and their happy converse, and so, in 1853, he purchased a house on Lynn Bay, some five or six miles distant from his cottage at Nahant. Here the sea-breeze was cool but never damp; while, unlike Nahant, the place was surrounded by green meadow-land and pleasant woods. This new house was much more luxurious than the cottages at Nahant and Pepperell, and he spent at Lynn nearly all his summers during his last five years. He added to the place, laying out its grounds and tastefully decorating its interior, having in view not merely his own comfort but that of his children and grandchildren, who now began to gather about him. His daughter Elizabeth, who was married in 1852 to Mr. James Lawrence of Boston, occupied a delightful country house near by. One memorial of Prescott long remained here to recall alike the owner of the place and the work to which his life had been devoted. This was a large cherry tree, which afforded the only shade about the house when he first took possession of it. The state of his eye made it impossible for him to remain long in the sunshine; and so, in his hours of composition, he paced around the circle of the shade afforded by this tree, carrying in his hand a light umbrella, which he raised for a moment when he passed that portion of the circle on which the sunlight fell. He thus trod a deep path in the turf; and for years after his death the path remained still visible,--a touching reminder to those friends of his who saw it. CHAPTER VI THE LAST TEN YEARS