Page:Letters of Life.djvu/173

Rh Perhaps I should ask your pardon for adding a tribute which, to uninterested persons, may seem commonplace, but which was with me a heart-voice. The favorite companion of happy school-days, and the loving mother who installed me almost as a daughter, when her own had found first a new residence, and last an eternal home, it was fitting that I should record in verse as well as in memory.

Neither would I omit the expression of gratitude for attentions and kind treatment from almost every member of the ancient aristocracy with whom I became acquainted. In those days it might not have been deemed a slight condescension to notice with a marked, unvarying regard, one of humble origin, unaided by wealth, and unable, even in the large hospitalities of social intercourse, to render an equivalent for benefits conferred.

It was in the autumn of 1857 that I was permitted to attend an interesting festival in Norwich—the gathering, as far as was feasible, of all the remaining branches of the great clan Huntington. Invitations had been sent, for a year previous, in all directions, and preliminary arrangements made for accommodation and comfort.

Nature conspired with this movement of so many of her friends, for the weather was fine and the scenery paradisaical. It was in the "shining morning-face" of Thursday, September 3d, that throngs, in carriages and