when only
fifteen years old.

'_Jamaica Plains, July, 1840_.--Do you remember my telling
you, at Cohasset, of a Mr. ---- staying with us, when I was
fifteen, and all that passed? Well, I have not seen him since,
till, yesterday, he came here. I was pleased to find, that,
even at so early an age, I did not overrate those I valued.
He was the same as in memory; the powerful eye dignifying an
otherwise ugly face; the calm wisdom, and refined observation,
the imposing _maniere d'etre_, which anywhere would give him
an influence among men, without his taking any trouble, or
making any sacrifice, and the great waves of feeling that
seemed to rise as an attractive influence, and overspread his
being. He said, nothing since his childhood had been so marked
as his visit to our house; that it had dwelt in his thoughts
unchanged amid all changes. I could have wished he had never
returned to change the picture. He looked at me continually,
and said, again and again, he should have known me anywhere;
but O how changed I must be since that epoch of pride and
fulness! He had with him his son, a wild boy of five years
old, all brilliant with health and energy, and with the same
powerful eye. He said,--You know I am not one to confound
acuteness and rapidity of intellect with real genius; but he
is for those an extraordinary child. He would astonish you,
but I look deep enough into the prodigy to see the work of an
extremely nervous temperament, and I shall make him as dull
as I can. "_Margaret_," (pronouncing the name in the same
deliberate searching way he used to do,) "I love him so well,
I will try to teach him moderation. If I can help it, he shall
not feed on bitter ashes, nor try these paths of avarice and
ambition." It made me feel very strangely to hear him talk so
to my old self. What a gulf between! There is scarce a fibre
left of the haughty, passionate, ambitious child he remembered
and loved. I felt affection for him still; for his character
was formed then, and had not altered, except by ripening and
expanding! But thus, in other worlds, we shall remember our
present selves.'

Margaret's constancy to any genuine relation, once established, was
surprising. If her friends' _aim_ changed, so as to take them out of
her sphere, she was saddened by it, and did not let them go without a