llor, as well as ready with such help as her state of health would
warrant. Though weak in body, in spirit she was strong and calm and
self-reliant, with a clear, discriminating intellect, a keen sense of
right, and a certain solidity and balanced symmetry of the spiritual
nature which made her an appreciable power wherever she was known. Of
Mariann, Grace Anna says, that if a flash of inspiration was required,
it usually came from her. Taught by her love for others, and by a
sensitiveness almost preternaturally quick, "she always knew exactly the
right thing to do," and put all the poetry of a nature exquisitely fine
into her efforts to diffuse around her purity and peace and happiness.
Her constant, utterly unselfish endeavors to this end contributed in
ample measure to the blessedness of a delightful home, rich in the
virtues, charities and graces which make home blessed. Veiled by her
modest and retiring disposition, to few beyond the circle of her home
were known the beauty and beneficence of her noiseless life; but those
who did look in upon it testified her worth in terms so strong as showed
how deeply it impressed them. "Just the best woman I ever knew," said a
young man for whom she had long cared like a mother. "I cannot
remember," said another, "ever hearing from her one ungentle word;" and
it may be safely doubted whether she was ever heard to utter such. And
one who "knew her every mood" cannot recall an instance of selfishness
in her, even when a child. "The most womanly woman I ever knew,"
declared a friend long closely intimate with her, "and such as would
have been adored, if found by any man worthy of her."

The ideal element in her was chastened by sound sense and blended with a
quick sagacity; but her shrinking sensitiveness, too keen to be quite
healthy, and an extreme of self-forgetfulness, amounting possibly to a
defect in one sojourning amid this world's diverse dispositions and
experiences, rendered her, on the whole, less balanced and complete than
her younger sisters, and not well fitted for rough encounter with life's
trials. So it became Grace Anna's province, especially after their
mother's death, to stand a shelter between her and whatever would
unpleasantly affect her by its contact; to be in some sort as a brother
to her, seeing there was no brother in the house. But from this it must
not be inferred that Grace Anna is less gifted with the distinctive
qualities of her sex. For the native