t a shadow of doubt
over her stainless impartiality.

"She could be deceived, for she was too simple and lofty always
to conceive the objects of base minds:--

"'And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity
Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill,
Where no ill seems.'
_Paradise Lost._

"Nevertheless, she generally read the characters of artifice and
insincerity with intuitive quickness, though it was often
believed she was duped by those whom she saw through completely.
Of this she was aware, but she was so exempt from all desire to
prove her sagacity, that she never cared to correct the
misconception; and she held that it was neither useful nor quite
justifiable to expose all the pretences we may discover, till it
became necessary to set the unwary on their guard.

"She never renounced the innocent pleasures or pursuits of life,
nor the proprieties of a distinguished station, though she
partook so little of its luxuries, that she could pass from the
splendour of her own establishment to one the most confined,
apparently without sensibility to the change. Wherever she moved,
she inspired joy and cheerfulness; yet she was by no means
unreserved, except to those she tenderly loved, and it was
surprising how any manner so gentle, could at the same time
oppose a barrier so impassable to the advances of the unworthy.
She enjoyed the beauty of nature with passion. Her mind, at an
advanced age, had all the elasticity and animation of the prime
of life, and she could be led to forget half the night in the
excitement of conversation. Happy were the hours spent with her
in the discussion of every subject that could call forth her
opinions, and her wide knowledge of the eventful times in which
she had lived!--hours that exalted the feelings, informed the
understandings, and animated the playfulness of younger minds,
who found that forty years of difference between their age and
hers, took nothing from their sympathies, but added a new and
rare delight to their intercourse.

"But she is gone! To those who knew her, her counsels are silent
and her place void; but there remains the distinct consciousness,
that to them had been given a living evidence of the true
Christian spirit, for if her