We reached “The Knoll” a little after nightfall, and a cordial shake of the hand by Miss M., who was waiting for us, soon assured us that we had met with a warm friend.

It is not my intention to lay open the scenes of domestic life at “The Knoll,” nor to describe the social parties of which my friends and I were partakers during our sojourn within the hospitable walls of this distinguished writer; but the name of Miss M. is so intimately connected with the Anti-slavery movement, by her early writings, and those have been so much admired by the friends of the slave in the United States, that I deem it not at all out of place for me to give the readers of the North Star some idea of the authoress of “Political Economy,” “Travels in the East,” “The Hour and the Man,” &c.

The dwelling is a cottage of moderate size, built after Miss M.’s own plan, upon a rise of land from which it derives the name of “The Knoll.”  The Library is the largest room in the building, and upon the walls of it were hung some beautiful engravings and a continental map.  On a long table which occupied the centre of the room, were the busts of Shakspere, Newton, Milton, and a few other literary characters of the past.  One side of the room was taken up with a large case, filled with a choice collection of books, and everything indicated that it was the home of genius and of taste.

The room usually occupied by Miss M., and where we found her on the evening of our arrival, is rather small and lighted by two large windows.  The walls of this room were also decorated with prints and pictures, and on the mantle-shelf were some models in terra cottia of Italian groups.  On a circular table lay casts, medallions, and some very choice water-colour drawings.  Under the south window stood a small table covered with newly opened letters, a portfolio and several new books, with here and there a page turned down, and one with a paper knife between its leaves as if it had only been half read.  I took up the last mentioned, and it proved to be the “Life and Poetry of Hartly Coleridge,” son of S.T.  Coleridge.  It was just from the press, and had, a day or two before, been forwarded to her by the publisher.  Miss M. is very deaf and always carries in her left hand a trumpet; and I was not a little surprised on learning from her that she had never enjoyed the sense of smell, and only on one occasion the sense of taste, and that for a single moment.  Miss M. is loved with a sort of idolatry by the people of Ambleside, and especially the poor, to whom she gives a course of lectures every winter gratuitously.  She finished her last course the day before our arrival.  She was much pleased with Ellen Craft, and appeared delighted with the story of herself and husband’s escape from slavery, as related by the latter—­during the recital of which I several times saw the silent tear stealing down her cheek, and which she tried in vain to hide from us.