REMINISCENCES OF HUXLEY 217 
he had been saying. Spencer’s answer was civil, but 
brief, and not inviting. Nothing abashed, the stranger 
kept on, and persisted in forcing himself into the con- 
versation, despite our bleak frowns and arctic glances. 
It was plain that something must be done, and while 
the intruder was aiming a question directly at Huxley, 
the latter turned his back upon him. This was intel- 
ligible even to asinine apprehension, and the re- 
mainder of our evening was unmolested. 
I never knew (not being inquisitive) just when the 
Huxleys began having their “tall teas” on Sunday 
evenings; but during their first winter I seldom met 
any visitors at their house, except once or twice Ray 
Lankester and Michael Foster. Afterward, Huxley 
with his wife, on their visit to America, spent a few 
summer days with my family at Petersham, where the 
great naturalist learned for the first time what a tin 
dipper is. Once, in London, in speaking about the 
starry heavens, I had said that I never could make 
head or tail of any constellation except the Dipper, 
and of course everybody must recognize in that the 
resemblance to adipper. To my surprise, one of the 
young ladies asked, “ What is a dipper?” My effort 
at explanation went far enough to evoke the idea of a 
“ladle,” but with that approximation I was fain to let 
the matter rest until that August day in New England, 
when, after a tramp in the woods, my friends quaffed 
cool mountain water from a dipper, and I was told 
that not only the name, but the thing, is a Yankee 
notion. 
Some time after this I made several visits to Eng- 
land, giving lectures at the Royal Institution and 
elsewhere, and saw the Huxleys often, and on one 
