Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The last line but two stood, at 
      first, better and more characteristically, thus:
<pre>
            "By my half-kitchen and half-parlour fire."
</pre>
      My Sister and I were in the habit of having the tea-kettle in our 
      little sitting-room; and we toasted the bread ourselves, which 
      reminds me of a little circumstance not unworthy of being set down 
      among these minutiae. Happening both of us to be engaged a few 
      minutes one morning when we had a young prig of a Scotch lawyer to 
      breakfast with us, my dear Sister, with her usual simplicity, put 
      the toasting-fork with a slice of bread into the hands of this 
      Edinburgh genius. Our little book-case stood on one side of the 
      fire. To prevent loss of time, he took down a book, and fell to 
      reading, to the neglect of the toast, which was burnt to a cinder. 
      Many a time have we laughed at this circumstance, and other 
      cottage simplicities of that day. By the bye, I have a spite at 
      one of this series of Sonnets (I will leave the reader to discover 
      which) as having been the means of nearly putting off for ever our 
      acquaintance with dear Miss Fenwick, who has always stigmatised 
      one line of it as vulgar, and worthy only of having been composed 
      by a country squire.