Hamilton, Dayton, and Columbus, in which places Mr. Howells spent so much of his youth, are all important centers of trade and manufacture where crowds and noisy traffic are ever present in the business sections, and where a maze of residence streets spread out into the country round about. At Hamilton, the only building I could discover associated with Mr. Howells was the Baptist church where he attended Sunday-school. But it is now a paint-shop, and the paint-man has adorned the entire front with a scenic sample of his art, which makes the structure more suggestive of a theater than a church. The Great Miami River flows through the town as of old, and the tall buildings, towers, and spires in the heart of the place are strikingly picturesque seen from some points of vantage along the banks of the stream. But the most charming feature of the past is the canal in which the boys used to swim and fish, and which, doubtless, still serves for the same purposes. It is no longer a thoroughfare for traffic, though the tow-path is used in part by trams and pedestrians. Dayton had its canal, too, but this, like the one at Hamilton, has been abandoned, except as the mills make use of it. At Columbus is what was the new State House in Mr. Howells's youth, the Medical College in which he roomed, and a sprinkling of quiet old residences that were there in his time. The college, which originally was a castle-like structure with an upthrust of towers and turrets, has had its sky-line somewhat straightened by the addition of an extra story; but this has only marred, without destroying, its characteristic quaintness. Jefferson was the home of Mr. Howells's father for the most of his later life, and of his older brother, Joseph, whom the people there like to recall for his many fine qualities of head and heart, and as the printer and editor of the "best weekly paper" ever published in Ashtabula County. This brother is referred to again and again in the chapters that follow. His grave in the Jefferson cemetery has been marked with the "imposing-stone" that he used in his office. Here is the inscription written by the novelist and carved on the broad surface of the stone: TO THE MEMORY OF JOSEPH ALEXANDER HOWELLS BORN AT ST. CLAIRSVILLE, OHIO, 1832 DIED AT AUBURNDALE, FLORIDA, 1912 AMERICAN CONSUL AT TURK'S ISLAND FROM 1905 TO 1912 PRINTER AND THEN EDITOR, HE IMPOSED IN PAGES ON THIS STONE, WHICH HE DESIRED SHOULD MARK, HIS FINAL RESTING PLACE, THE TYPES OF THE ASHTABULA SENTINEL FROM 1851 TO 1905 STONE, UPON WHICH WITH HANDS OF BOY AND MAN HE FRAMED THE HISTORY OF HIS TIME UNTIL WEEK AFTER WEEK THE VARYING RECORD RAN TO ITS HALF-CENTURIED TALE OF WELL AND ILL.