"I asked after the children, and Miss Southey said that the little boy had called out to her, 'Oh! Aunt Katy, the Ameriky ladies have come!
"The three children were called in; the boy, about six years old, of course wouldn't speak to me.
"The best portrait of Southey in his daughter's collection is a profile in wax—a style that I have seen several times in England, and which I think very pretty.
"We went down to Lodore, the scene of the poem, 'How does the Water come Down,' etc., and found it about as large as the other waterfalls around here—a little dripping of water among the stones.
COLLINGWOOD, Nov. 14, 1857.
MY DEAR FATHER: This is Sir John Herschel's place. I came last night just at dusk.
According to English ways, I ought to have written a note, naming the hour at which I should reach Etchingham, which is four miles from Collingwood; but when I left Liverpool I went directly on, and a letter would have arrived at the same time that I did. I stopped in London one night only, changed my lodging-house, that I might pay a pound a week only for letting my trunk live in a room, instead of two pounds, and started off again.
I reached Etchingham at ten minutes past four, took a cab, and set off for Sir John's. It is a large brick house, no way handsome, but surrounded by fine grounds, with beautiful trees and a very large pond.
The family were at dinner, and I was shown into the drawing-room.
There was just the light of a coal fire, and as I stood before it Sir John bustled in, an old man, much bent, with perfectly white hair standing out every way. He reached both hands to me, and said, "We had no letter and so did not expect you, but you are always welcome in this house." Lady Herschel followed—very noble looking; she does not look as old as I, but of course must be; but English women, especially of her station, do not wear out as we do, who are "Jacks at all trades."