"Profoundly religious,--though her creed was, at once, very
broad and very short, with a genuine love for inferiors in
social position, whom she was habitually studying, by her
counsel and teachings, to elevate and improve,--she won
the confidence and affection of those who attracted her, by
unbounded sympathy and trust. She probably knew the cherished
secrets of more hearts than any one else, because she freely
imparted her own. With a full share both of intellectual and
of family pride, she preeminently recognized and responded to
the essential brotherhood of all human kind, and needed but to
know that a fellow-being required her counsel or assistance,
to render her, riot merely willing, but eager to impart it.
Loving ease, luxury, and the world's good opinion, she stood
ready to renounce them all, at the call of pity or of duty.
I think no one, not radically averse to the whole system of
domestic servitude, would have treated servants, of whatever
class, with such uniform and thoughtful consideration,--a
regard which wholly merged their factitious condition in their
antecedent and permanent humanity. I think few servants ever
lived weeks with her, who were not dignified and lastingly
benefited by her influence and her counsels. They might be
at first repelled, by what seemed her too stately manner and
exacting disposition, but they soon learned to esteem and love
her.

"I have known few women, and scarcely another maiden, who had
the heart and the courage to speak with such frank compassion,
in mixed circles, of the most degraded and outcast portion of
the sex. The contemplation of their treatment, especially
by the guilty authors of their ruin, moved her to a calm and
mournful indignation, which she did not attempt to suppress
nor control. Others were willing to pity and deplore; Margaret
was more inclined to vindicate and to redeem. She did not
hesitate to avow that on meeting some of these abused, unhappy
sisters, she had been surprised to find them scarcely fallen
morally below the ordinary standard of Womanhood,--realizing
and loathing their debasement; anxious to escape it; and only
repelled by the sad consciousness that for them sympathy and
society remained only so long as they should persist in
the ways of pollution. Those who have read her 'Woman,' may