felt for Zion. Still, the sentiment that leads to the preservation and embellishment of an ancestral mansion, especially in these times, when the fashion is that "all things should be made new," seems to me to possess great filial as well as moral beauty.
Lydia Lathrop, the only sister of the two brothers of whom I have spoken, was brought up in the indulgences of wealth, yet not released from the obligations that a primitive and utilitarian age required of her sex. I have heard that she was accounted beautiful when young, and sought in marriage by those of high position and expectations. When I first saw her she was the thoughtful and rather comely wife of a Presbyterian minister settled at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, whence she came statedly to visit the paternal home, being welcomed like an angel. The echo, "Mrs. Austin has come!" transmitted from servant to servant to our abode on the opposite side of the street, is among the gleeful clarion-cries of memory. She always remembered to bring something to the children. My usual gift was a small sugar radish with a tuft of green leaves. This was treasured for months immaculate, till another came. I recollect feeling great indignation at a visitant to my baby-house, who broke, for the purpose of tasting it, my consecrated treasure.
The choice of her lot for life, by this daughter of the aristocracy, was considered a love-match, and
