Three beautiful women,—­either of whom would have been the fairest ornament of Papanti’s Assemblies, but for the presence of the other,—­were her friends.  One of these early became, and long remained, nearly the central figure in Margaret’s brilliant circle, attracting to herself, by her grace and her singular natural eloquence, every feeling of affection, hope, and pride.

Two others I recall, whose rich and cultivated voices in song were,—­one a little earlier, the other a little later,—­the joy of every house into which they came; and, indeed, Margaret’s taste for music was amply gratified in the taste and science which several persons among her intimate friends possessed.  She was successively intimate with two sisters, whose taste for music had been opened, by a fine and severe culture, to the knowledge and to the expression of all the wealth of the German masters.

I remember another, whom every muse inspired, skilful alike with the pencil and the pen, and by whom both were almost contemned for their inadequateness, in the height and scope of her aims.

‘With her,’ said Margaret, ’I can talk of anything.  She is like me.  She is able to look facts in the face.  We enjoy the clearest, widest, most direct communication.  She may be no happier than ——­, but she will know her own mind too clearly to make any great mistake in conduct, and will learn a deep meaning from her days.’

’It is not in the way of tenderness that I love ——.  I prize her always; and this is all the love some natures ever know.  And I also feel that I may always expect she will be with me.  I delight to picture to myself certain persons translated, illuminated.  There are a few in whom I see occasionally the future being piercing, promising,—­whom I can strip of all that masks their temporary relations, and elevate to their natural position.  Sometimes I have not known these persons intimately,—­oftener I have; for it is only in the deepest hours that this light is likely to break out.  But some of those I have best befriended I cannot thus portray, and very few men I can.  It does not depend at all on the beauty of their forms, at present; it is in the eye and the smile, that the hope shines through.  I can see exactly how ——­ will look:  not like this angel in the paper; she will not bring flowers, but a living coal, to the lips of the singer; her eyes will not burn as now with smothered fires, they will be ever deeper, and glow more intensely; her cheek will be smooth, but marble pale; her gestures nobly free, but few.’

Another was a lady who was devoted to landscape-painting, and who enjoyed the distinction of being the only pupil of Allston, and who, in her alliance with Margaret, gave as much honor as she received, by the security of her spirit, and by the heroism of her devotion to her friend.  Her friends called her “the perpetual peace-offering,” and Margaret says of her,—­’She is here, and her neighborhood casts the mildness and purity too of the moonbeam on the else parti-colored scene.’