Page:The American fugitive in Europe.djvu/194

186 trees, was the cottage where once resided Mrs. Hemans. And below us lay Windermere, looking more like a river than a lake, and which, if placed by the side of our own Ontario, Erie or Huron, would be lost in the fog. But here it looks beautiful in the extreme, surrounded as it is by a range of mountains that have no parallel in the United States for beauty. Amid a sun of uncommon splendor, dazzling the eye with the reflection upon the water below, we descended into the valley, and I was soon again seated by the fireside of our hospitable hostess. In the afternoon of the same day we took a drive to the "Dove's Nest," the home of the late Mrs. Hemans.

We did not see the inside of the house, on account of its being occupied by a very eccentric man, who will not permit a woman to enter the house; and it is said that he has been known to run when a female had unconsciously intruded herself upon his premises. As our company was in part composed of ladies, we had to share their fate, and therefore were prevented from seeing the interior of the "Dove's Nest." The exhibitor of such a man would be almost sure of a prize at the Great Exhibition.

At the head of Grassmere Lake, and surrounded by a few cottages, stands an old, gray, antique-looking parish church, venerable with the lapse of centuries, and the walls partly covered with ivy, and in the rear of which is the parish burial-ground. After having the "Dove's Nest," and having a pleasant ride over the hills and between the mountains, and just as the sun was disappearing