whisper to the swaying flowers.
When he goes by, ring all your bells
Of perfume, ring, for he is ours.

"Ours is the resolute, firm step,
Ours the dark lightning of the eye,
The rare sweet smile, and all the joy
Of ownership, when he goes by.

. . . . .

"I know above our simple spheres
His fame has flown, his genius towers;
These are for glory and the world.
But he himself is only ours."

[Illustration: FRIENDS' MEETING-HOUSE AT AMESBURY]

The Friends' meeting-house, in 1836, was nearly opposite the Whittier
cottage, on the site of the present French Catholic church. Two
centuries ago there had been an earlier meeting-house of the Society,
also on Friend Street, and the name of the street was given on this
account. The present meeting-house, on the same street, was built in
1851, upon plans made by Mr. Whittier, who was chairman of the
committee having it in charge. He once told me that some conservative
Friends were worried lest he make the house too ornate. To satisfy
them, he employed three venerable carpenters, one of them a Quaker
minister and the other two elders of the Society, and the result was
this perfectly plain, neat structure, comfortable in all its
appointments. Visitors like to find the seat usually occupied by
Whittier. It is now marked by a silver plate. I have accompanied him to
a First Day service here, in which for a half hour no one was moved to
say a word. And this was the kind of service he much preferred to one
in which the time was "fully occupied." The meeting was dismissed
without a spoken word, the signal being the shaking of hands by two of
the elders on the "facing seats." Then each worshiper shook the hand of
the person next him. There was no sudden separation. The company formed
itself into groups for a pleasant social reunion. In the group that
surrounded Whittier were ten or twelve octogenarians, whom he told me
he had met in this way almost every week since his boyhood; for even
when living in Haverhill, this was the meeting his family attended. It
was delightful to see the warmth and tenderness of the greetings of
these venerable life-long friends. I once accompanied him to a
devotional meeting, where many of the leading Friends of the Society
were present, and as the papers had announced the names of several
speakers from distant States, he expressed the fear that there would be
no opportunity to g