lace seized powerfully on
Margaret's imagination. "The curious structure of this old-fashioned
house," says her mother, "its picturesque appearance, the varied and
beautiful grounds around it, called up a thousand poetic images and
romantic ideas. A long gallery, a winding staircase, a dark, narrow
passage, a trap-door, large apartments with massive doors and heavy
iron bolts and bars,--all set her mind teeming with recollections of
what she had read, and imagination of old castles, &c." Perhaps it was
under the influence of feelings thus suggested that she composed the
following

"STANZAS.

"O for the pinions of a bird,
To bear me far away,
Where songs of other lands are heard,
And other waters play!--

For some aerial car, to fly
On, through the realms of light,
To regions rife with poesy,
And teeming with delight.

O'er many a wild and classic stream
In ecstasy I'd bend,
And hail each ivy-covered tower
As though it were a friend;

Through many a shadowy grove, and round
Full many a cloistered hall,
And corridors, where every step
With echoing peal doth fall.

. . . . . . . . . .

O, what unmingled pleasure then
My youthful heart would feel,
And o'er its thrilling chords each thought
Of former days would steal!

. . . . . . . . . .

Amid the scenes of past delight,
Or misery, I'd roam,
Where ruthless tyrants swayed in might,
Where princes found a home.

. . . . . . . . . .

I'd stand where proudest kings have stood,
Or kneel where slaves have knelt,
Till, rapt in magic solitude,
I feel what they have felt."

Margaret now felt comparatively well, and was eager to resume her
studies. She was indulged so far as to be permitted to accompany her
father three times to the city, where she took lessons in French,
music, and dancing. To the Christmas holidays she looked forward as a
season of delight; she had prepared a drama of six acts for the
domestic entertainment, and the back parlor was to be fitted up for a
theatre, her little brothers being her fellow-laborers. But her
anticipations were disappointed. Two of her brothers were taken ill;
and one of them, a beautiful boy of nine, never recovered. "This,"
says her mother, "was Margaret's first acquaintance with death. She
saw her sweet little play-fellow reclining upon my bosom during his
last agonies; she witnessed the bright glow which flashed upon his