sent by Bayard Taylor, of the Rock in El Ghor, on receipt
of which the poem of that title was written. The Norway picture was
painted by Mrs. Taylor, and represents the surroundings of the
northernmost church in the world. The mirror in this room is an
heirloom of the Whittier family, dating at least a century before the
birth of the poet. The little table under it is almost equally old.

The album containing the likeness of Dr. Weld has also a photograph
under which Whittier has written "Mary E. S. Thomas," and this has a
special interest, as it is a portrait of his relative, schoolmate, and
life-long friend, Mary Emerson Smith, who became the wife of Judge
Thomas of Covington, Ky. She was a granddaughter of Captain Nehemiah
Emerson, who fought at Bunker Hill, was an officer in the army of
Washington, serving at Valley Forge and at the surrender of Burgoyne,
and her grandmother was Mary Whittier--a cousin of the poet's father,
whom Whittier used to call "aunt Mary." For a time, when in his teens,
he stayed at Captain Emerson's, and went to school from there, making
himself useful in doing chores. Mary Smith, then a young girl, passed
much of her time at her grandfather's, and later was a fellow-student
of Whittier's at the Academy. I think there is now no impropriety in
stating that it is to her that the poem "Memories" refers.[4] She was
living at the time when the biography of Whittier was written, and for
that reason her name was not given, but only a veiled reference in
"Life and Letters," as at page 276. During many years of her widowhood
she spent the summer months in New England, and occasionally met Mr.
Whittier at the mountains. They were in friendly correspondence to the
close of his life. She survived him several years. It has been
suggested with some show of probability that it is a memory of the days
they spent together at her grandfather's that is embodied in the poem
"My Playmate." At the time when this poem was written she was living in
Kentucky.

"She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go."

But this poem, like others of Whittier's, is probably a composite of
memories and largely imaginative, as is shown in what is elsewhere said
about the localities of Ramoth Hill and Folly Mill.

[Illustration: MARY EMERSON (SMITH) THOMAS]

[Illustration: EVELINA BRAY, AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN]

In the "garden room" also