their
mother's death, and in their mutual devotion have been well compared
to Charles Lamb and his sister.

"We spent a delightful evening in the garden-room in quiet, cheerful
talk. In society Mr. Whittier had the reputation of being very shy,
and he was so among strangers; but at times, in the companionship of
his friends, no one could be more genial. He had even a boyish
frankness of manner, a natural love of fun, a keen appreciation of the
humorous, which the sorrows and poor health of many years failed to
subdue. That night he talked to us freely of his childhood, of the
life on the old farm in Haverhill, which he has so vividly described
in _Snow-Bound_, and showed us a venerable book, _Davideis_, being a
history of David written in rhyme, the quaintest and most amusing
rhyme, by Thomas Ellwood, a friend of Milton. It was the first book of
'poetry,' he told us, that he read when a boy. He entertained us with
stories of people who came to see him. He had many very interesting
and charming visitors, of course, but there were also many exceedingly
queer ones, and these, he said with a queer smile, generally 'brought
their carpet bags!' He said he was thankful to live in such a place as
Amesbury, where people did not speak to him about his poems, nor think
of him as a poet. Sometimes he had amused himself by tracking the most
persistent of the lion-hunters, and found that the same individuals
went to Emerson and Longfellow and other authors, and made precisely
the same speeches. Emerson was not much annoyed by them; he enjoyed
studying character in all its phases.

"Begging letters and begging visits were also very frequent, and his
sister told us that her brother had frequently been victimized in his
desire to help those whose pitiful stories he believed. One day he
received a letter from a man in a neighboring town, asking him for a
loan of ten dollars, and assuring him that he should blow his brains
out if Mr. Whittier did not send him the money. The tone of the letter
made him doubt the sincerity of the writer, and he did not send the
money, comforting himself, he said, with the thought that the man
really had no brains to blow out. 'I must confess, however,' he
added, 'I looked rather anxiously at the newspapers for the next few
days, but seeing no news of a suicide in the neighboring town, I was
relieved.'

"His sister once told us of an incident which occurred during the war,
which pleased them very much. O