morning to feed from her hand and perch on her
fingers. Uncle Seth himself wore a scarlet waistcoat, and, as I recall
him, seemed altogether in figure to belong to the time of Cromwell, or to
earlier days. There was a hall, hung round with many old family
portraits in antique dresses, and an immense dairy--the pride of Aunt
Betsy's heart--and a garden, in which I was once shown a humming-bird's
nest; and cousin Rebecca's mantelpiece, over a vast old fireplace, heaped
with mosses, birds' nests, shells, and such curiosities as a young girl
would gather in the woods and fields; and the cider-press, in which Uncle
Seth ground up the sixteen hundred bushels of apples which he had at one
crop, and the new cider gushing in a stream, whereof I had a taste. It
was a charming, quiet old homestead, in which books and culture were not
wanting, and it has all to me now something of the chiaroscuro and
Rembrandt colour and charm of the _Mahrchen_ or fairy-tale. The reality
of this charm is apt to go out of life as that of literature or culture
comes in. To this day I draw the deepest impression or sentiment of the
_pantheism_ or subtle spiritual charm of Nature far more from these early
experiences of rural life than from all the books, poetry included, which
I have ever perused. Note this well, ye whose best feelings are only a
_rechauffe_ of Ruskin and Browning--_secundem ordinem_--for I observe
that those who do not think at second hand are growing rare.

In the town of Milford lived my uncle, William Godfrey, with my aunt
Nancy, and of them and their home I have many pleasant memories. The
very first of them all was not so pleasant to me at the time. My parents
had just arrived, and had not been ten minutes in the house ere a
tremendous squall was heard, and my mother, looking from the window,
beheld me standing in the open barn-door holding a tiny chicken in my
right hand, while an old hen sat on my head flapping her wings and
pecking me in wrath. I, seeing the brood, had forthwith captured one,
and for that was undergoing penance. It was a beautiful tableau, which
was never forgotten! We went there on visits for many summers. Uncle
William was a kind-hearted, "sportive" man, who took _Bell's Life_, and I
can remember that there was a good supply of English reading in the
house. My uncle had three sons, all much older than I. The eldest,
Stearns, was said to have first popularised the phrase "posted up," to
signify