however, that she has derived from
the perusal of these works a certain practical science of her own. "I
read all the novels I can get," she said yesterday; "but I only like the
good ones. I do so like Zanoni, which I have just finished." I must set
her to work at some of the masters. I should like some of those fretful
New-York heiresses to see how this woman lives. I wish, too, that half a
dozen of _ces messieurs_ of the clubs might take a peep at the present
way of life of their humble servant. We breakfast at eight o'clock.
Immediately afterwards, Miss Blunt, in a shabby old bonnet and shawl,
starts off to school. If the weather is fine, the Captain goes out
a-fishing, and I am left to my own devices. Twice I have accompanied the
old man. The second time I was lucky enough to catch a big blue-fish,
which we had for dinner. The Captain is an excellent specimen of the
sturdy navigator, with his loose blue clothes, his ultra-divergent legs,
his crisp white hair, and his jolly thick-skinned visage. He comes of a
seafaring English race. There is more or less of the ship's cabin in the
general aspect of this antiquated house. I have heard the winds whistle
about its walls, on two or three occasions, in true mid-ocean style. And
then the illusion is heightened, somehow or other, by the extraordinary
intensity of the light. My painting-room is a grand observatory of the
clouds. I sit by the half-hour, watching them sail past my high,
uncurtained windows. At the back part of the room, something tells you
that they belong to an ocean sky; and there, in truth, as you draw
nearer, you behold the vast, gray complement of sea. This quarter of the
town is perfectly quiet. Human activity seems to have passed over it,
never again to return, and to have left a kind of deposit of melancholy
resignation. The streets are clean, bright, and airy; but this fact
seems only to add to the intense sobriety. It implies that the
unobstructed heavens are in the secret of their decline. There is
something ghostly in the perpetual stillness. We frequently hear the
rattling of the yards and the issuing of orders on the barks and
schooners anchored out in the harbor.

* * * * *

_June 28th._--My experiment works far better than I had hoped. I am
thoroughly at my ease; my peace of mind quite passeth understanding. I
work diligently; I have none but pleasant thoughts. The past has almost
lost its terrors. For a week now