ing a steady perusal
of its features, it baffled every attempt to judge the character by
physiognomical induction. You saw the evidence of a mighty force, but
what direction that force would assume,--whether it would determine
itself to social triumphs, or to triumphs of art,--it was impossible
to divine. Her moral tendencies, her sentiments, her true and
prevailing character, did not appear in the lines of her face. She
seemed equal to anything, but might not choose to put forth her
strength. You felt that a great possibility lay behind that brow, but
you felt, also, that the talent that was in her might miscarry through
indifference or caprice.

"I said she had no pretensions to beauty. Yet she was not plain. She
escaped the reproach of positive plainness, by her blond and abundant
hair, by her excellent teeth, by her sparkling, dancing, busy eyes,
which, though usually half closed from near-sightedness, shot piercing
glances at those with whom she conversed, and, most of all, by the
very peculiar and graceful carriage of her head and neck, which all
who knew her will remember as the most characteristic trait in her
personal appearance.

"In conversation she had already, at that early age, begun to
distinguish herself, and made much the same impression in society that
she did in after years, with the exception, that, as she advanced
in life, she learned to control that tendency to sarcasm,--that
disposition to 'quiz,'--which was then somewhat excessive. It
frightened shy young people from her presence, and made her, for a
while, notoriously unpopular with the ladies of her circle.

"This propensity seems to have been aggravated by unpleasant
encounters in her school-girl experience. She was a pupil of Dr. Park,
of Boston, whose seminary for young ladies was then at the height of a
well-earned reputation, and whose faithful and successful endeavors
in this department have done much to raise the standard of female
education among us. Here the inexperienced country girl was exposed
to petty persecutions from the dashing misses of the city, who pleased
themselves with giggling criticisms not inaudible, nor meant to be
inaudible to their subject, on whatsoever in dress and manner fell
short of the city mark. Then it was first revealed to her young heart,
and laid up for future reflection, how large a place in woman's world
is given to fashion and frivolity. Her mind reacted on these attacks
with indiscriminate sarcasms