(With "Verses On The Hillside.")

Go forth, O little flower of song, To her who found you fair; After a winter black as night, I plucked you when spring's smile brought light, And April's winds were blithe and strong, And Hope was in the air.

Poor stray of Autumn left to Spring, I send you forth to be 'Twixt us a pledge of happier hours; Yea, though she hath far fairer flowers Always at hand for gathering, Go forth undoubtingly.

For thou hast gained a happy meed, And wert thou weed or worse, With her praise for a light above, Many should find thee fair, and love Though not for thine own sake indeed,-- But her sake, O my verse.

Be weed or flower, and live or die, To me thou art more dear Than all thy sister flowerets are, O herald of the single star That rose above the lowering sky Of my most hopeless year.

One particularly delightful day was that on which Mrs. Moulton attended a garden-party at Lambeth Palace as the guest of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs. Benson. Another of the red-letter days was an afternoon with the Holman Hunts, in their rambling, fascinating house, filled with artistic treasures, when on the lawn a Hungarian orchestra played their national airs. Among the guests were Lewis Morris, Edwin Arnold, Hall Caine, Theodore Watts-Dunton, and many others who bore names well known. The diary records, too, a studio-reception given by Felix Moscheles, a coaching trip to Virginia Water; and so on for a round of gay doings which make it amazing that all this time Mrs. Moulton continued her literary work.

In the autumn Mrs. Moulton journeyed to Carlsbad, and there "made Lady Ashburton's acquaintance in the morning and sat up in the wood with her for a couple of hours." The acquaintance ripened into a warm friendship between the two, and Mrs. Moulton was often a guest at Lady Ashburton's place, Kent House, Knightsbridge. The sonnet "One Afternoon" is the memory of this first meeting written at Carlsbad a year after.

On her return to America in the autumn, Mrs. Moulton went to Pomfret to visit her mother. While there she heard from Miss Guiney of the death of a young poet, James Berry Bensel, of whom she wrote to Oscar Fay Adams as follows:

Mrs. Moulton to Mr. Adams

28 RUTLAND SQUARE, Sunday.

MY DEAR FRIEND: Your letter just received draws my very heart out in sympathy. I wish you were here, that I could tell you all the feelings that it brought, for I know what it is to lose my dearest friend. Louise Guiney said to me when she came Friday afternoon: "I have something to tell you. Bensel is dead. His brother has written me." And I was not myself all the afternoon. I could not put aside the thought that pleaded for my tears. And I grieved that I had not yet written to him about his book. I find such fine things in it. Come back and let us grieve for him together,--not that I grieve as you do who loved him so, but I do understand all you feel, and I felt his death very unusually, myself. I wish, oh, how I wish, we could call him back to life, and give him health, and the strength to work, and more favorable conditions. But we do not know but that he may now be rejoicing somewhere in a great gain, beyond our vision. He has gone where our vision cannot find or our fancy follow him; but he must either be better off in a new birth or else so deeply at rest that no pain can pierce him where he is. Good-bye and God bless you.

Yours most truly,

LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.

The Boston winters were full always with social and literary interests. The relations of Mrs. Moulton to the writers of her circle were indicated when on her sailing in the spring of one of the late eighties a post-bag was arranged which was delivered to her in mid-ocean. The idea originated with Miss Marian Boyd Allen, and among the contents were a manuscript book of poems for every day by Bliss Carman; poems by Clinton Scollard, Arlo Bates, Willis Boyd Allen, Minot J. Savage, Celia Thaxter, the Rev. Bernard Carpenter, Gertrude Hall, Mary Elizabeth Blake, and Hezekiah Butterworth; a silver vinaigrette from Professor James Mills Pierce; a book from Mrs. Clara Erskine Clement Waters; two charming drawings from Winthrop Pierce; with notes from Nora Perry, Colonel T.W. Higginson, and others. Miss Guiney addressed as her "Chief Emigrant and Trans-Atlantic Gadder, Most Ingenious Poet, and Queen of Hearts." Colonel Higginson wrote:

T.W. Higginson to Mrs. Moulton

CAMBRIDGE, May 3, 1887.

DEAR FRIEND: I gladly join with others in this mid-ocean post-bag. I hope you will take your instalments of friendship in as many successive days. Few American women,--perhaps none,--have succeeded in establishing such a pleasant intermedian position before English and American literature as have you, and as the ocean does not limit your circle of friends, it seems very proper that we on this side should stretch our hands to you across it. As one of your oldest and best friends, I wish you not only "many happy returns," but one, at least, in the autumn.

Ever cordially,

T.W. HIGGINSON.

On the other side of the Atlantic Philip Bourke Marston and his friend William Sharp greeted her return to London in three sonnets.

Philip Bourke Marston to Mrs. Moulton

UNDESCRIED.--TO L.C.M.

When from her world, new world, she sailed away, Right out into the sea-winds and the sea, Did no foreshadowing of good to be Surprise my heart? That memorable day Did I as usual rise, think, do, and say As on a day of no import to me? Did hope awake no least low melody? Send forth no spell my wandering steps to stay? Oh, could our souls catch music of the things From some lone height of being undescried, Then had I heard the song the sea-wind sings The waves; and through the strain of storm and tide,-- As soft as sleep and pure as lovely springs,-- Her voice wherein all sweetnesses abide.

William Sharp to Mrs. Moulton