ow, a great yearning rose up in her poor wounded heart
to see once more her child, the comfort and stay of her bitter life. And
as she had written to him her wish and longing, the boy went to her, saw
the striking change, saw that the broken spirit of the saintly woman was
day by day nearing the margin of the dark hereafter, into whose healing
waters it would bathe and be whole again. The unspeakable experience of
mother and son, during this last meeting is not for you and me, reader,
to look into. Soon after Lloyd's return to Newburyport a cancerous tumor
developed on her shoulder, from the effects of which she died September
3, 1823, at the age of forty-five. More than a decade after her death
her son wrote: "She has been dead almost eleven years; but my grief at
her loss is as fresh and poignant now as it was at that period;" and he
breaks out in praise of her personal charms in the following original
lines:

"She was the masterpiece of womankind--
In shape and height majestically fine;
Her cheeks the lily and the rose combined;
Her lips--more opulently red than wine;
Her raven locks hung tastefully entwined;
Her aspect fair as Nature could design;
And then her eyes! so eloquently bright!
An eagle would recoil before her light."

The influence of this superb woman was a lasting power for truth and
righteousness in the son's stormy life. For a whole year after her
death, the grief of the printer's lad over his loss, seemed to have
checked the activity of his pen. For during that period nothing of his
appeared in the _Herald_. But after the sharp edge of his sorrow had
worn off, his pen became active again in the discussion of public men
and public questions. It was a period of bitter personal and political
feuds and animosities. The ancient Federal party was _in articulo
mortis_. The death-bed of a great political organization proves
oftentimes the graveyard of lifelong friendships. For it is a scene of
crimination and recrimination. And so it happened that the partisans of
John Adams, and the partisans of John Adams's old Secretary of State,
Timothy Pickering, were in 1824 doing a thriving business in this
particular line. Into this funereal performance our printer's apprentice
entered with pick and spade. He had thus early a _penchant_ for
controversy, a soldier's scent for battle. If there was any fighting
going on he proceeded directly to have a hand in it. And it cannot be
denied that that h