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LIII.

LYDIA SIGOURNEY

(BORN 1791—­DIED 1865.)

THE LESSON OF A USEFUL AND BEAUTIFUL LIFE.

“A beautiful life I have had.  Not more trial than was for my good.  Countless blessings beyond expectation or desert....  Behind me stretch the green pastures and still waters by which I have been led all my days.  Around is the lingering of hardy flowers and fruits that bide the Winter.  Before stretches the shining shore.”

These are the words of Mrs. Sigourney, written near the close of a life of seventy-four years.  All who have much observed human life will agree that the rarest achievement of man or woman on this earth is a solid and continuous happiness.  There are very few persons past seventy who can look back upon their lives, and sincerely say that they would willingly live their lives over again.  Mrs. Sigourney, however, was one of the happy few.

Lydia Huntley, for that was her maiden name, was born at Norwich, Connecticut, on the first of September, 1791.  Her father was Ezekiel Huntley, an exceedingly gentle, affectionate man, of Scotch parentage, who had as little of a Yankee in him as any man in Connecticut.  Unlike a Yankee, he never attempted to set up in business for himself, but spent the whole of the active part of his life in the service of the man to whom he was apprenticed in his youth.  His employer was a druggist of great note in his day, who made a large fortune in his business, and built one of the most elegant houses in the State.  On his retirement from business his old clerk continued to reside under his roof, and to assist in the management of his estate; and, even when he died, Mr. Huntley did not change his abode, but remained to conduct the affairs of the widow.  In the service of this family he saved a competence for his old age, and he lived to eighty-seven, a most happy, serene old man, delighting chiefly in his garden and his only child.  He survived as late as 1839.

Owing to the peculiar relations sustained by her father to a wealthy family—­living, too, in a wing of their stately mansion, and having the free range of its extensive gardens—­Lydia Huntley enjoyed in her youth all the substantial advantages of wealth, without encountering its perils.  She was surrounded by objects pleasing or beautiful, but no menial pampered her pride or robbed her of her rightful share of household labor.  As soon as she was old enough to toddle about the grounds, her father delighted to have her hold the trees which he was planting, and drop the seed into the little furrows prepared for it, and never was she better pleased than when giving him the aid of her tiny fingers.  Her parents never kept a servant, and she was brought up to do her part in the house.  Living on plain, substantial fare, inured to labor, and dressed so as to allow free play to every limb and muscle, she laid in a stock of health, strength, and good temper that lasted her down to the last year of her life.  She never knew what dyspepsia was.  She never possessed a costly toy, nor a doll that was not made at home, but she passed a childhood that was scarcely anything but joy.  She was an only child, and she was the pet of two families, yet she was not spoiled.