On the 24th of November, 1824, she left home, health on her cheek and in her bosom, and flushed with the most ardent expectations of getting rapidly forward in the career her desires were fixed upon. But even at this moment her fond devotion to her mother was beautifully expressed, in some stanzas which she left where they would meet her eye as soon as the parting tears were wiped away. These stanzas are already published, and I shall only quote two from them, striking for their tenderness and truth.
Which nature gave me at life's opening day;
To thee these rude, these untaught strains belong,
Whose heart, indulgent, will not spurn my lay!
What bosom would have throbbed like thine for me?
Who would have smiled responsive? Who in grief
Would e'er have felt, and, feeling, grieved like thee?"
The following extracts from her letters, which were always filled with yearnings for home, will show that her affections were the stronghold of her nature:—
"Troy Seminary, December 6th, 1824.—Here I am at last; and what a naughty girl I was, when I was at Aunt Schuyler's, that I did not write you everything! But to tell the truth, I was topsy-turvy, and so I am now; but in despite of calls from the young ladies, and of a hundred new faces, and new names which are constantly ringing in my ears, I have set myself down, and will not rise until I have written an account of everything to my dear mother. I am contented; yet, notwithstanding, I have once or twice turned a wishful glance towards my
