ing thing. When she was about nine, one of her schoolfellows gave her a young rat that had broken its leg in attempting to escape from a trap; she tore off a part of her pocket-handkerchief, bound up the maimed leg, carried the animal home, and nursed it tenderly. The rat, in spite of the care of its little leech, died, and was buried in the garden, and honored with the meed of a "melodious tear." This lament has not been preserved; but one she wrote soon after, on the death of a maimed pet robin, is given here as the earliest record of her Muse that has been preserved:—
A little bird which ne'er could fly;
Twelve large angle-worms did fill
This little bird, whom they did kill.
Puss, if you should chance to smell
My little bird from his dark cell,
O! do be merciful, my cat,
And not serve him as you did my rat!"
Her application to her studies at school was intense. Her mother judiciously, but in vain, attempted a diversion in favor of that legitimate sedative to female genius, the needle; Lucretia performed her prescribed tasks with fidelity and with amazing celerity, and was again buried in her book.
When she was about twelve, she accompanied her father to the celebration of Washington's birth-night. The music and decorations excited her imagination; but it was not with her, as with most children, the
