I do not know that I ever thought of her at that time as an author.  If anybody had predicted to me that one of that group would be the writer of books, which would not only have a wide circulation at home, but be translated into foreign languages, I should certainly have selected Louisa, and I think most persons who knew them would have done the same.  The elder sister’s passion for books, her great powers of acquisition, the range of her attainments—­embracing not only modern languages and their literature, but Latin, Greek and Hebrew—­her ability to maintain discussions on German metaphysics and theology with learned Professors, all seemed to point her out as the one likely to achieve distinction in the literary world.

I do not remember whether it was Lizzy’s early contributions to “The Youth’s Companion,” showing already the germ of the creative power in her, or her letters to her sister, which first suggested to me that the pleasure her friends found in her conversation might yet be enjoyed by those who would never see her.  Louisa had given up her school for the more congenial employment of contributing to magazines and reviews and of writing children’s books.  And as the greater literary resources of Boston drew her thither, she was often for months a welcome guest at our house, where she first met Professor Hopkins of Williamstown, and whom she afterward married.  The letters which Lizzy wrote to her at those times were never allowed to be the monopoly of one person; we all claimed a right to read them.  The ease with which in these she seemed to talk with her pen, the mingled pathos and humor with which she would relate all the little joys and sorrows of daily life, leaving her readers between a smile and a tear, showed the same characteristics which afterward made her published writings so much more generally attractive than the graver ones of her elder sister.  But Louisa’s failing health soon after her marriage, and the long years of suffering which followed, prevented her ever doing justice to the expectations her friends had formed for her.

The occasion of my next visit to Portland was a letter from Mrs. Payson to my mother, who was her constant correspondent, in which she spoke sadly of an indisposition she feared was the precursor of serious illness, but which chiefly troubled her on account of Lizzy’s distress that her school prevented her being constantly with her mother.  An offer on my part to come and take her place, in her hours of necessary absence, was at once accepted.  Mrs. Payson’s illness proved less serious than had been feared, and once more I passed several pleasant weeks in that house; but the pleasantest hours of the day were those in which Lizzy, returning from school, sat down at her mother’s bedside and amused her with her talk about her pupils, their various characters and the progress they had made in their studies, or related little incidents of the school-room—­with her usual frankness not omitting those which revealed