that the dearest associations gathered.
More than forty years afterwards, when Lady Trevelyan was dying, she
had herself driven to the spot, as the last drive she ever took, and sat
silent in her carriage for many minutes with her eyes fixed upon those
well-known walls.

[In August 1857, Macaulay notes in his diary: "I sent the carriage home,
and walked to the Museum. Passing through Great Ormond Street I saw a
bill upon No. 50. I knocked, was let in, and went over the house with
a strange mixture of feelings. It is more than twenty-six years since
I was in it. The dining-room, and the adjoining room, in which I once
slept, are scarcely changed--the same colouring on the wall, but more
dingy. My father's study much the same;--the drawing-rooms too, except
the papering. My bedroom just what it was. My mother's bedroom. I had
never been in it since her death. I went away sad."]

While warmly attached to all his nearest relations, Macaulay lived in
the closest and most frequent companionship with his sisters Hannah and
Margaret, younger than himself by ten and twelve years respectively.
His affection for these two, deep and enduring as it was, had in it no
element of blindness or infatuation. Even in the privacy of a diary,
or the confidence of the most familiar correspondence, Macaulay, when
writing about those whom he loved, was never tempted to indulge in fond
exaggeration of their merits. Margaret, as will be seen in the course
of this narrative, died young, leaving a memory of outward graces, and
sweet and noble mental qualities, which is treasured by all among whom
her short existence was passed. As regards the other sister, there are
many alive who knew her for what she was; and, for those who did not
know her, if this book proves how much of her brother's heart she had,
and how well it was worth having, her children will feel that they have
repaid their debt even to her.

Education in the Macaulay family was not on system. Of what are
ordinarily called accomplishments the daughters had but few, and Hannah
fewest of any; but, ever since she could remember anything, she had
enjoyed the run of a good standard library, and had been allowed to read
at her own time, and according to her own fancy. There were two traits
in her nature which are seldom united in the same person: a vivid
practical interest in the realities which surrounded her, joined with
the power of passing at will into a world of literature and romance