eager to afford her every gratification in her power, had a room prepared for her recess; her dinner was sent up to her, she declined coming down to tea, and her mother, on going to her apartment, found her writing,—her plate untouched.
Some secret joy it was natural her mother should feel at this devotion to intellectual pleasure; but her good sense or her maternal anxiety got the better of it, and she persuaded Lucretia to consent to-the interruption of a daily walk. It was about this period that she became acquainted with the gentleman who was destined to influence the brief space of life that remained to her. The late Hon. Moss Kent, with whom her mother had been acquainted for many years previous to her marriage, had often been a guest at the house of Dr. Davidson, but it had so happened that he had never met Lucretia since her early childhood. Struck with some little -effusions which were in the possession of his sister, Mrs. P———, he went immediately to see Mrs. Davidson, to ask the privilege of reading some of her last productions. On his way to the house he met Lucretia; he had been interested by the reputation of her genius and modesty; no wonder that the beautiful form in which it was enshrined, should have called this interest into sudden and effective action. Miss Davidson was just sixteen; her complexion was the most beautiful brunette, clear and brilliant, of that warm tint that seems to belong to lands of the sun rather than to our chilled regions; indeed, her whole organization, mental as well as physical, her deep and quick sensibility, her early development, were characteristics of a warmer clime than ours; her stature
