beautiful coloring over their graceful and sometimes
grotesque outline that you would not have them other than they are.

The Ambleside houses are of dark-gray stone, and almost all of them
have ivy and flowers about them. One small house, the oldest in the
village, was several hundred years old; and out of all the crevices
between the stones hung harebells and other wild flowers; one side of
it and much of the roof were covered with ivy. This house was only
about ten feet square, and it looked to me like a great rustic flower
pot.

I should like some time to read you a description of this lovely place,
written by Miss Martineau herself. Then you will almost hear the
murmuring sound of the Brathay and the Rotha, and breathe the perfume
of the wild heather, and catch the freshness of the morning breeze, as
she offers you these mountain luxuries in her glowing words.

Miss Martineau lives a little out of the village. You drive up to the
house through a shrubbery of laurels, and roses, and fuschias, and
other plants,--young trees and flowers,--to the beautiful little porch,
covered with honeysuckles and creeping plants. The back of the house is
turned to the road, and the front looks out over the loveliest green
meadows, to the grand, quiet hills, sometimes clear and sharp in their
outline against the blue sky, and at others wreathed with mist; and one
might sit for hours at the large bay window in the parlor, watching
these changes, and asking no other enjoyment.

It was also a great pleasure to witness the true and happy life of my
friend. I saw there the highest ideas of duty, usefulness, and
benevolence carried into daily practice. Miss Martineau took us one
morning to see the poet Wordsworth. He lived in a low, old-fashioned
stone house, surrounded by laurels, and roses, and fuschias, and other
flowers and flowering shrubs. The porch is all covered with ivy. We
found the venerable man in his low, dark parlor. He very kindly showed
us his study, and then took us over his grounds.

When we took our leave, I asked him to give each of us a leaf from a
fine laurel tree near him; this he did very kindly, and smiled as
kindly at my effort at a compliment, in saying to him something about
one who had received so many laurels having some to spare to others. I
thanked him for his goodness in giving me so much of his time, and bade
the venerable man good by, very much pleased with my visit, and very
grateful to the kind fri