ich, except so far as
he voluntarily reveals it, the public has no right to enter. The shadow
of a domestic affliction which darkened all his life seemed only to have
increased his paternal care and tenderness. To his fond solicitude for
his daughters we owe a part of the writings wherewith he has enriched
our literature. While in America, he often said to me that his chief
desire was to secure a certain sum for them, and I shall never forget
the joyous satisfaction with which he afterwards informed me, in London,
that the work was done. "Now," he said, "the dear girls are provided
for. The great anxiety is taken from my life, and I can breathe freely
for the little time that is left me to be with them." I knew that he had
denied himself many "luxuries" (as he called them) to accomplish this
object. For six years after he had redeemed the losses of a reckless
youthful expenditure, he was allowed to live and to employ an income,
princely for an author, in the gratification of tastes which had been so
long repressed.

He thereupon commenced building a new house, after his own designs. It
was of red brick, in the style of Queen Anne's time, but the internal
arrangement was rather American than English. It was so much admired,
that, although the cost much exceeded his estimate, he could have sold
it for an advance of a thousand pounds. To me the most interesting
feature was the library, which occupied the northern end of the first
floor, with a triple window opening toward the street, and another upon
a warm little garden-plot shut in by high walls.

"Here," he said to me, when I saw him for the last time, "here I am
going to write my greatest work,--a History of the Reign of Queen Anne.
There are my materials,"--pointing to a collection of volumes in various
bindings which occupied a separate place on the shelves.

"When shall you begin it?" I asked.

"Probably as soon as I am done with 'Philip,'" was his answer; "but I am
not sure. I may have to write another novel first. But the History will
mature all the better for the delay. I want to _absorb_ the authorities
gradually, so that, when I come to write, I shall be filled with the
subject, and can sit down to a continuous narrative, without jumping up
every moment to consult somebody. The History has been a pet idea of
mine for years past. I am slowly working up to the level of it, and know
that when I once begin I shall do it well."

It is not likely that any part o