Page:Some unpublished letters of Henry D. and Sophia E. Thoreau; a chapter in the history of a still-born book.djvu/136

 beside the road! In our conversing, I forgot to do it, which seemed to annoy him. (His whims showed themselves otherwise during that walk.)

We found the house; X. was good-natured and communicative j he pointed out to me the corner room wherein Channing's "Poet-Naturalist" first saw daylight. We returned by the way of Mr. Alcott's, took tea with the family and stayed there until nearly nine o'clock. The older daughter, Louise, was away from home, but I met her sister May. She is quite an artist; bright, active, a good talker, somewhat forward, and she reminded me of some shrewd, sprightly young man that had travelled. She is quite busy, painting and selling her work—her father said—to raise money for taking a third trip to Europe. For a few moments I thought of patronising her a little; so, pricing a piece of her painting on a black panel about the size of a chair slat, I found it to be $25.00. I "threw up the sponge."

Mr. A. read to me from the manuscript of a forthcoming book. I liked it much, but X. became visibly restive (A. noticed it) and finally left the room to go and talk with the women. Afterwards, X. evidently felt that he had misdone, so on leaving he protested that he was interested in hearing A.'s writings read by