on Longfellow’s Poems,—­for which an impulse in personal pique has been alleged, I happen with certainty to know had no such origin.  When I first handed her the book to review, she excused herself, assigning the wide divergence of her views of Poetry from those of the author and his school, as her reason.  She thus induced me to attempt the task of reviewing it myself.  But day after day sped by, and I could find no hour that was not absolutely required for the performance of some duty that would not be put off, nor turned over to another.  At length I carried the book back to her in utter despair of ever finding an hour in which even to look through it; and, at my renewed and earnest request, she reluctantly undertook its discussion.  The statement of these facts is but an act of justice to her memory.

“Profoundly religious,—­though her creed was, at once, very broad and very short, with a genuine love for inferiors in social position, whom she was habitually studying, by her counsel and teachings, to elevate and improve,—­she won the confidence and affection of those who attracted her, by unbounded sympathy and trust.  She probably knew the cherished secrets of more hearts than any one else, because she freely imparted her own.  With a full share both of intellectual and of family pride, she preeminently recognized and responded to the essential brotherhood of all human kind, and needed but to know that a fellow-being required her counsel or assistance, to render her, riot merely willing, but eager to impart it.  Loving ease, luxury, and the world’s good opinion, she stood ready to renounce them all, at the call of pity or of duty.  I think no one, not radically averse to the whole system of domestic servitude, would have treated servants, of whatever class, with such uniform and thoughtful consideration,—­a regard which wholly merged their factitious condition in their antecedent and permanent humanity.  I think few servants ever lived weeks with her, who were not dignified and lastingly benefited by her influence and her counsels.  They might be at first repelled, by what seemed her too stately manner and exacting disposition, but they soon learned to esteem and love her.

“I have known few women, and scarcely another maiden, who had the heart and the courage to speak with such frank compassion, in mixed circles, of the most degraded and outcast portion of the sex.  The contemplation of their treatment, especially by the guilty authors of their ruin, moved her to a calm and mournful indignation, which she did not attempt to suppress nor control.  Others were willing to pity and deplore; Margaret was more inclined to vindicate and to redeem.  She did not hesitate to avow that on meeting some of these abused, unhappy sisters, she had been surprised to find them scarcely fallen morally below the ordinary standard of Womanhood,—­realizing and loathing their debasement; anxious to escape it; and only repelled by the sad consciousness