[1] This story is told more fully in Life and Letters, pp. 53, 54.

[2] This picture is reproduced from a drawing by Miss Francesca Alexander in her exquisite volume, Tuscan Songs. It is the face of an Italian peasant, but bears so extraordinary a resemblance to Harriet Livermore (as testified by several who knew her) that it is here given as representing her better than any known portrait.

[3] This letter has been published in full in a limited edition, by Mr. Goodspeed, together with a New Year's Address referred to in it as having given offense to some of the citizens of Rocks Village. A portion of this Address (which appeared in the Haverhill Gazette, January 5, 1828) is given in Life and Letters, pp. 62, 63. The lines that seem to have given offense are these:—
"Rocks folks are wide awake—their old bridge tumbled
Some years ago, and left them all forsaken;
But they have risen, tired of being humbled,
And the first steps towards a new one taken.
They're all alive—their trade becomes more clever,
And mobs and riots flourish well as ever."
Thirty-five years later, perhaps remembering the offense he had given in his youth by his portrayal of the liveliness of the place, he shaded his picture in The Countess with a different pencil, and we have a "stranded village" sketched to the life.

[4] It is of curious interest that although the poem Memories was first published in 1841, the description of the "beautiful and happy girl" in its opening lines is identical with that of one of the characters in Moll Pitcher, published nine years earlier, and I have authority for saying that Mary Smith was in mind when that portrait was drawn. Probably the reason why Whittier never allowed Moll Pitcher to be collected was because he used lines from it in poems written at later dates.

[5] This is how it happened: Mr. Downey saw a newspaper item to the effect that Mrs. S. F. Smith was a classmate of Whittier's. He knew that his wife was a classmate of Mrs. Smith, and "put this and that together." Without saying anything to her about it, he sent a tract of his to Whittier, and with it a note about his work as an evangelist; in a postscript he said, "Did you ever know Evelina Bray?" Whittier wrote a criticism of the tract, which was against Colonel Ingersoll, in which he said, "It occurs to me to say that in thy tract there is hardly enough charity for that unfortunate man, who, it seems to me, is much to be pitied for his darkness of unbelief." He added as a postscript, "What does thee know about Evelina Bray?" Downey replied that she was his wife, but did not let her know of this correspondence, or of his receipt of money from her old schoolmate. He was not poor, only eccentric.

[6] This house is now cared for by the Josiah Bartlett chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution.

[7] The house of these brothers and the barn in which the husking was held may be seen near the West Ossipee station of the Boston and Maine Railroad. The Bearcamp House was burned many years ago, and never rebuilt.

[8] There was a forest fire on a shoulder of Chocorua at this time.

[9] She was knitting at the time.

[10] She had refused to sing that evening.

[11] Lucy Larcom was then suffering from hay fever.

[12] The papers had an item to the effect that some one had given Whittier a cottage at the Isles of Shoals.

[13] The only lawyer present.

[14] A line is here missing. I had the copy of this poem from Mr. Weld himself when he was ninety years of age. He had accidentally omitted it in copying for me; and his death occurred before the omission was noticed.