wn to him, and was rather justified in his eyes by the first
half-hour of her conversation with him.

"I believe I fancied her too much interested in personal history; and
her talk was a comedy in which dramatic justice was done to everybody's
foibles. I remember that she made me laugh more than I liked."

Passing into a happier vein, she unfolded her brilliant powers of
repartee, expressed her own opinions, and sought to discover those of
her companion. Soon her wit had effaced the impression of her personal
unattractiveness; "and the eyes, which were so plain at first, swam with
fun and drolleries, and the very tides of joy and superabundant life."
He now saw that "her satire was only the pastime and necessity of her
talent," and as he learned to know her better, her plane of character
rose constantly in his estimation, disclosing "many moods and powers, in
successive platforms or terraces, each above each."

Mr. Emerson likens Margaret's relations with her friends to the wearing
of a necklace of social brilliants of the first water. A dreaded waif
among the merely fashionable, her relations with men and women of higher
tastes were such that, as Mr. Emerson says, "All the art, the thought,
and the nobleness in New England seemed at that moment related to her,
and she to it."

In the houses of such friends she was always a desired guest, and in her
various visitings she "seemed like the queen of some parliament of love,
who carried the key to all confidences, and to whom every question had
been referred."

Mr. Emerson gives some portraits which make evident the variety as well
as the extent of Margaret's attraction. Women noted for beauty and for
social talent, votaries of song, students of art and literature,--men as
well as women,--vied with each other in their devotion to her. To each
she assumed and sustained a special relation whose duties and offices
she never neglected nor confounded. To each she became at once a source
of inspiration and a court of appeal. The beneficence of her influence
may be inferred from the lasting gratitude of her friends, who always
remembered her as having wisely guided and counselled them.

Any human life is liable to be modified by the supposition that its
results are of great interest to some one whose concern in them is not a
selfish one. Where this supposition is verified by corresponding acts,
the power of the individual is greatly multiplied. This merciful, this
providenti