Margaret’s home at this time was in the mansion-house formerly belonging to Judge Dana,—­a large, old-fashioned building, since taken down, standing about a quarter of a mile from the Cambridge Colleges, on the main road to Boston.  The house stood back from the road, on rising ground, which overlooked an extensive landscape.  It was always a pleasure to Margaret to look at the outlines of the distant hills beyond the river, and to have before her this extent of horizon and sky.  In the last year of her residence in Cambridge, her father moved to the old Brattle place,—­a still more ancient edifice, with large, old-fashioned garden, and stately rows of Linden trees.  Here Margaret enjoyed the garden walks, which took the place of the extensive view.

During these five years her life was not diversified by events, but was marked by an inward history.  Study, conversation, society, friendship, and reflection on the aim and law of life, made up her biography.  Accordingly, these topics will constitute the substance of this chapter, though sometimes, in order to give completeness to a subject, we may anticipate a little, and insert passages from the letters and journals of her Groton life.

[Footnote A:  I had once before seen Margaret, when we were both children about five years of age.  She made an impression on my mind which was never effaced, and I distinctly recollect the joyful child, with light flowing locks and bright face, who led me by the hand down the back-steps of her house into the garden.  This was when her father lived in Cambridgeport, in a house on Cherry street, in front of which still stand some handsome trees, planted by him in the year of Margaret’s birth.]

[Footnote B:  “The Rivals” was a novel I had lent her,—­if I remember right, by the author of “The Collegians;” a writer who in those days interested us not a little.]

[Footnote C:  These words of Goethe, which I have placed among the mottoes at the beginning of this chapter, were written by Margaret on the first page of a richly gilt and bound blank book, which she gave to me, in 1832, for a private journal.  The words of Koerner are also translated by herself, and were given to me about the same time.]

[Footnote D:  The hero of a novel she was reading.]

I.

FRIENDSHIP.

  “Friendly love perfecteth mankind.”

  BACON.

  “To have found favor in thy sight
    Will still remain
  A river of thought, that full of light
    Divides the plain.”

  MILNES.

    “Cui potest vita esse vitalis, (ut ait Ennius,) quae non in
    amici mutata benevolentia requiescat?”—­CICERO.

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