She could read and understand the heart of children through and through, as indeed she could everybody’s.  And that was, perhaps, her chiefest charm; a keen eye to see and a true heart to sympathise and love.  She was absolutely sincere, and no one could help feeling that she was so.  We felt ourselves fairly imaged when standing before her, as in a clear plate-glass mirror.  There were no distorted lines caused by her own imperfections; for although she considered herself “compassed with infirmity,” no one else could take such a view of her, but only saw the abundant charity which could cover and forgive a multitude of failings in others.  We felt that if there was any good in us, she knew it, and even when she saw them “with all our faults she loved us still,” and loved to do us good.

You would like me to tell you “how she looked.”  You can form some idea from her picture, but not an adequate one.  Her face defied both the photographer’s and the painter’s art.  The crayon likeness, taken shortly before her death by Miss Crocker, a young artist from Maine, is, in some respects, excellent.  The eyes and mouth—­not to speak of other features—­are very happily reproduced.  She was of medium height, yet stood and walked so erect as to appear taller than she really was.  Her dress, always tasteful, with little or no ornament that one could remember, was ever suited to the time and place, and seemed the most becoming to her which could have been chosen.  She was perfectly natural, and, though shy and reserved among strangers, had a quiet, easy grace of manner, that showed at once deference for them and utter unconsciousness of self.  Her head was very fine and admirably poised.  She had a symmetrical figure, and her step to the last was as light and elastic as a girl’s.

When I first knew her, in the flush and bloom of young maternity, her face scarcely differed in its curving outlines from what it was more than a quarter of a century later, when the joys and sorrows of full-orbed womanhood had stamped upon it indelible marks of the perfection they had wrought.  Her hair was then a dark-brown; her forehead smooth and fair, her general complexion rich without much depth of color except upon the lips.  In silvering her clustering locks time only added to her aspect a graver charm, and harmonised the still more delicate tints of cheek and brow.  Her eyes were black, and at times wonderfully bright and full of spiritual power; but they were shaded by deep, smooth lids which gave them when at rest a most dove-like serenity.  Her other features were equally striking; the lips and chin exquisitely moulded and marked by great strength as well as beauty.  Her face, in repose, wore the habitual expression of deep thought and a soft earnestness, like a thin veil of sadness, which I never saw in the same degree in any other.  Yet when animated by interchange of thought and feeling with congenial minds, it lighted up with a perfect radiance of love and intelligence, and a most beaming smile that no pen or pencil can describe—­least of all in my hand, which trembles when I try to sketch the faintest outline.