pale and sickly over her studies, and she judiciously withdrew her, for a time, from school. She was soon rewarded for this wise measure by hearing her child's bounding step as she approached her sick-room, and seeing the cheek bent over her pillow blooming with returning health. How miserably mistaken are those, who fancy that all the child's lessons must be learned from the school-book and school-room! This apt pupil of Nature had only changed her books and her master; now, she sat at the feet of the great teacher, Nature, and read, and listened, and thought, as she wandered along the Saranac, or contemplated the. varying aspects of Cumberland Bay. She would sit for hours and watch the progress of a thunder-storm, from the first gathering of the clouds to the farewell smile of the rainbow. "Twilight," and "The Evening Spirit," are examples of the impression of these studies and pensive meditations.
In her thirteenth year the clouds seemed heavily gathering over her morning; her mother, who had hitherto been her guide and companion, could no longer extend to her child the sympathy and encouragement which she needed. Lucretia was oppressed with the apprehension of losing this fond parent, who for weeks and months seemed upon the verge of the grave. There are, among her unpublished poems, some touching lines to her mother, written, I believe, about this tume, concluding thus:—
That weeps o'er every passing wave;
This life is but a restless pillow;
There's calm and peace beyond the grave."
