’how much humble love continually flows.  These every-day and lowly friends never forget my wishes, never censure my whims, make no demands on me, and load me with gifts and uncomplaining service.  Though sometimes forgetful of their claims, I try to make it up when we do meet, and I trust give little pain as I pass along this world.’

Even in extreme cases of debasement she found more to admire than to contemn, and won the confidence of the fallen by manifesting her real respect.  “There was in my family,” writes a friend, “a very handsome young girl, who had been vicious in her habits, and so enamored of one of her lovers, that when he deserted her, she attempted to drown herself.  She was rescued, and some good people were eager to reform her life.  While she was engaged in housework for us, Margaret saw her, and one day asked ——­ if she could not help her. ——­ replied:  ’No! for should I begin to talk with her, I should show my consciousness of her history so much as to be painful.’  Margaret was very indignant at this weakness.  Said she,

    ’This girl is taken away, you know, from all her objects of
    interest, and must feel her life vacant and dreary.  Her mind
    should be employed; she should be made to feel her powers.’

It was plain that if Margaret had been near her, she would have devoted herself at once to her education and reestablishment.”

About the time of breaking up their home, Margaret thus expressed, to one of her brothers, her hopes and plans.

’You wish, dear ——­, that I was not obliged to toil and spin, but could live, for a while, like the lilies.  I wish so, too, for life has fatigued me, my strength is little, and the present state of my mind demands repose and refreshment, that it may ripen some fruit worthy of the long and deep experiences through which I have passed.  I do not regret that I have shared the labors and cares of the suffering million, and have acquired a feeling sense of the conditions under which the Divine has appointed the development of the human.  Yet, if our family affairs could now be so arranged, that I might be tolerably tranquil for the next six or eight years, I should go out of life better satisfied with the page I have turned in it, than I shall if I must still toil on.  A noble career is yet before me, if I can be unimpeded by cares.  I have given almost all my young energies to personal relations; but, at present, I feel inclined to impel the general stream of thought.  Let my nearest friends also wish that I should now take share in more public life.’

[Footnote A:  Summer on the Lakes.]

[Footnote B:  The editor must offer as excuse for printing, without permission asked, this note, found carefully preserved among Margaret’s papers, that he knew no other way of so truly indicating the relation between mother and daughter.  This lily is eloquent of the valley where it grew.  W.H.C.]