sist in the
project. Though, owing to all these discouragements, I discontinued my
work, I never gave up the hope of renewing it some time, when other of
my coadjutors should awake to its importance and offer their services.

On October 27, 1886, with my daughter, nurse, and grandchild, I again
sailed for England. Going out of the harbor in the clear early morning,
we had a fine view of Bartholdi's statue of Liberty Enlightening the
World. We had a warm, gentle rain and a smooth sea most of the way, and,
as we had a stateroom on deck, we could have the portholes open, and
thus get all the air we desired. With novels and letters, chess and
whist the time passed pleasantly, and, on the ninth day, we landed in
Liverpool.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ENGLAND AND FRANCE REVISITED.

On arriving at Basingstoke we found awaiting us cordial letters of
welcome from Miss Biggs, Miss Priestman, Mrs. Peter Taylor, Mrs.
Priscilla McLaren, Miss Mueller, Mrs. Jacob Bright, and Mme. de Barrau.
During the winter Mrs. Margaret Bright Lucas, Drs. Kate and Julia
Mitchell, Mrs. Charles McLaren, Mrs. Saville, and Miss Balgarnie each
spent a day or two with us. The full-dress costume of the ladies was a
great surprise to my little granddaughter Nora. She had never seen bare
shoulders in a drawing room, and at the first glance she could not
believe her eyes. She slowly made the circuit of the room, coming nearer
and nearer until she touched the lady's neck to see whether or not it
was covered with some peculiar shade of dress, but finding the bare skin
she said: "Why, you are not dressed, are you? I see your skin!" The
scene suggested to me the amusing description in Holmes' "Elsie Venner,"
of the efforts of a young lady, seated between two old gentlemen, to
show off her white shoulders. The vicar would not look, but steadily
prayed that he might not be led into temptation; but the physician, with
greater moral hardihood, deliberately surveyed the offered charms, with
spectacles on his nose.

In December Hattie and I finished Dowden's "Life of Shelley," which we
had been reading together. Here we find a sensitive, refined nature,
full of noble purposes, thrown out when too young to meet all life's
emergencies, with no loving Mentor to guard him from blunders or to help
to retrieve the consequences of his false positions. Had he been
surrounded with a few true friends, who could appreciate what was great
in him and pity what was weak, his life