[Illustration: LONGFELLOW'S HOUSE--ONCE WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS AT
CAMBRIDGE]

Longfellow loved all children, and had a word for them whenever he met
them.

At a concert, going early with her father, a little girl espied Mr.
Longfellow sitting alone, and begged that she might go and speak to him.
Her father, himself a stranger, took the liberty of introducing his
little daughter Edith to the poet.

"Edith?" said Mr. Longfellow, tenderly. "Ah! I have an Edith, too; but
_my_ baby Edith is twenty years old." And he seated the child beside
him, taking her hand in his, and making her promise to come and see him
at his house in Cambridge.

"What is the name of your sled, my boy?" he said to a small lad, who
came tugging one up the road toward him, on a winter morning.

"It's 'Evange_line_.' Mr. Longfellow wrote 'Evange_line_.' Did you ever
see Mr. Longfellow?" answered the little fellow, as he ran by, doubtless
wondering at the smile on the face of the pleasant gray-haired
gentleman.

Professor Monti, who witnessed the pretty scene, tells the story of a
little girl who one Christmas inquired the way to the poet's house, and
asked if she could just step inside the yard; and he relates how Mr.
Longfellow, being told she was there, went to the door and called her
in, and showed her the "old clock on the stairs," and many other