278 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 



comfortable meal might be had. The newly arrived 

 guest always had the warmest welcome, and while the 

 traveller was refreshing himself Aunt Lizzie would sit 

 and talk delightfully. 



My husband tells me that when he and his 

 brother were boys, they could have breakfast at any 

 hour of the morning in order to go fishing or shooting. 

 Boys were taken as much into consideration as any 

 one else in the complicated household, which con- 

 sisted of a dozen people regularly and often more 

 when there were guests. A convenient feature of the 

 Nahant cottage was that the rooms opened out of 

 doors so that the occupants could enter and leave 

 without disturbing other people. The Felton boys 

 had their room at the end of the west wing, which 

 proved a rendezvous for all their chums, where they 

 met to talk endlessly. ... It was a kind of Liberty 

 Hall of which the memories are delightful. . . . Guests 

 were always turning up unexpectedly to lunch, dine 

 or pass the night, and one never had a sensation of 

 making trouble even if the house were full a bed 

 could be made up in the laboratory for a grandson. 

 One of Aunt Lizzie's delightful thoughts for enter- 

 taining children was that each might bring an inti- 

 mate friend; so the variety of the rising generation 

 that we saw was amusing and extensive. . . . 



Aunt Lizzie delighted in her garden and until the 

 last few years of her life daily spent several hours 

 gathering and arranging her flowers. I like to recall 

 her in her fresh white morning gown, basket and 

 shears in hand, going leisurely with her rather stately 



