This conversation had a most happy effect; the stream flowed again in its natural channel, and Lucretia became cheerful, read and wrote, and practiced drawing. She had a decided taste for drawing, and excelled in it. She sung over her work, and in every way manifested the healthy condition that results from a wise obedience to the laws of nature.
We trust there are thousands of young ladies in our land, who, at the call of filial duty, would cheerfully perform domestic labor; but if there are any who would make a strong love for more elevated and refined pursuits an excuse for neglecting these coarser duties, we would commend them to the example of this conscientious child. She, if any could, might have pleaded her genius, or her delicate health, or her mother's most tender indulgence, for a failure, that in her would have hardly seemed to us a fault.
During this summer, she went to Canada with her mother, where she reveled in an unexplored library, and enjoyed most heartily the social pleasures at her sister's. They frequently had a family concert of music in the evening. Mrs. Townsend (her sister) accompanied the instruments with her fine voice. Lucretia was often moved by the music, and particularly by her favorite song, Moore's "Farewell to my Harp;" this she would have sung to her at twilight, when it would excite a shivering through her whole frame. On one occasion, she became cold and pale, and was near fainting, and afterwards poured her excited feelings forth in the lines addressed "To my Sister."
We insert here a striking circumstance that occurred
