met him, he was still as attractive as a man of thirty in dress and manner, and with the added delight of his extremely cultivated mind. His infirmity of sight did not prevent his getting about alone and eating his dinner with the grace of a diplomatist. If he asked any one for the toast or the cream at one of his daughter's delicious country teas, it was really a pleasantry and a compliment, and he could make his infirmity of sight a joke. If the cream-pitcher turned up under his hand, he would thank the finder and say, "If it had been a bear it would have bit me." He asked my husband and myself to his "workshop," as he called his library, and showed us the apparatus which is used by the blind — a wire-ruled machine for guiding the hand.
His library was filled with Spanish books, and with documents (acquired at great expense) from the archives of Spain; these were lying all about, arranged in that order which is Heaven's first law. He told us that his sight would come back curiously at times. He took immense care of his health, and walked every day around a great tree until he had worn a path. Mr. Prescott's home relations were delightful. He had married the love of his youth, a beautiful Miss Amory. He told me he used to look through a window where he could see her dance. Surrounded by his family, and with his charming daughter next door, this distinguished man passed his summer at Lynn, working every day for several hours, and then emerging from his library, with none of the dust of the old folios adhering, bringing with him only the aroma of learning. When I travelled in Spain some years since I used as my guide-book Ferdinand and Isabella, his masterpiece; nor do I want a more delightful set of books with which to cheat Time of his dulness than his entertaining histories. I have an auto-
