especially
distasteful to her.

"The puny child sought everywhere for the Roman or Shakespeare figures;
and she was met by the shrewd, honest eye, the homely decency, or the
smartness of a New England village on Sunday. There was beauty, but I
could not see it then; it was not of the kind I longed for.

"As my eye one day was ranging about with its accustomed coldness, it
was arrested by a face most fair, and well known, as it seemed at first
glance; for surely I had met her before, and waited for her long. But
soon I saw that she was an apparition foreign to that scene, if not to
me. She was an English lady, who, by a singular chance, was cast upon
this region for a few months."

This stranger seems to have been as gracious as she was graceful.
Margaret, after this first glimpse, saw her often, sometimes at a
neighbor's house, sometimes at her own. She was more and more impressed
by her personal charm, which was heightened in the child's eyes by her
accomplishments, rare in that time and place. The lady painted in oils
and played on the harp. Margaret found the greatest delight in watching
the growth of her friend's pictures, and in listening to her music.
Better still, they walked together in the quiet of the country. "Like a
guardian spirit, she led me through the fields and groves; and every
tree, every bird, greeted me and said, what I felt, 'She is the first
angel of your life.'"

Delight so passionate led to a corresponding sorrow. The lady, who had
tenderly responded to the child's mute adoration, vanished from her
sight, and was thenceforth known to her only through the interchange of
letters.

"When this friend was withdrawn," says Margaret, "I fell into a profound
depression. Melancholy enfolded me in an atmosphere, as joy had done.
This suffering, too, was out of the gradual and natural course. Those
who are really children could not know such love or feel such sorrow."
Her father saw in this depression a result of the too great isolation in
which Margaret had thus far lived. He felt that she needed change of
scene and, still more, intercourse with girls of her own age. The remedy
proposed was that she should be sent to school,--a measure which she
regarded with dread and dislike. She had hitherto found little pleasure
in the society of other girls. She had sometimes joined the daughters of
her neighbors in hard play, but had not felt herself at home with them.
Her retired and studious life had, she sa