ccasioned no astonishment; on the
contrary, we met a smiling salutation wherever we appeared; Miss
Wordsworth being, as I observed, the person most familiarly known of our
party, and the one who took upon herself the whole expenses of the flying
colloquies exchanged with stragglers on the road.'

When the family had to leave this cottage home at Townend, they migrated
to Allan Bank in 1808, and there remained for three years. In the spring
of 1811 they moved to the Parsonage of Grasmere, and thence, in the
spring of 1813, to Rydal Mount, their final abode. Their sojourn in the
Parsonage was saddened by the loss of two children, who died within six
months of each other, and were laid side by side in the churchyard of
Grasmere. The Parsonage looks right across the road on that
burial-place, and the continual sight of this was more than they could
bear. They were glad therefore to withdraw from it, and to exchange the
vale of Grasmere, now filled for them with too mournful recollections,
for the sweet retirement of Rydal.

Through all these changes sister Dorothy went of course with them, and
shared the affliction of the bereaved parents, as she had formerly shared
their happiness. In 1814, the year of the publication of the
'Excursion,' all of which Miss Wordsworth had transcribed, her brother
made another tour in Scotland, and this time Yarrow was not unvisited.
His wife and her sister went with him, but Dorothy, having stayed at home
probably to tend the children, did not form one of the party, a
circumstance which her brother always remembered with regret.

In the summer of 1820, however, she visited the Continent with her
brother and Mrs. Wordsworth, but of this tour no record remains. Another
visit, the last but one, Wordsworth made to Scotland in 1831, accompanied
by his daughter Dora. This time Yarrow was revisited in company with Sir
Walter Scott, just before his last going from Tweedside. Wordsworth has
chronicled his parting with Scott in two affecting poems, which if any
reader does not know by heart, I would recommend him to read them in the
Appendix to this Journal. {0b}

But by the time this expedition was made, Dorothy was an invalid confined
to a sick-room. In the year 1829 she was seized by a severe illness,
which so prostrated her, body and mind, that she never recovered from it.
The unceasing strain of years had at last worn out that buoyant frame and
fervid spirit. She had given herself to