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 
