e state of New York.
In her childhood, she exhibited an exuberance of imagination that
enabled her to delight her young associates with tales, which, according
to one of them, she would sit up in bed in the morning to write, and
then read aloud to them. She would, even then, write verses also, but in
this gift she was perhaps inferior to a sister, who died in early life,
and whose numerous poems were unfortunately, and to the grief of her
family, accidentally lost. At an early period she embraced religion and
was baptized by the Rev. Mr. Dean, a missionary to China, then in this
country. Her interest was awakened in the heathen, even at that time,
and she indulged in many ardent longings to go as a missionary to them.
The late Dr. Kendrick judiciously advised her to pursue the path of duty
at home, and quietly wait the leadings and openings of Providence. This
advice she followed, and as a means of improving the straitened
circumstances of her family, she left home and engaged as a teacher in a
seminary in Utica.

Desirous to increase still farther her mother's limited resources, she
determined to employ her pen; and published some short religious tales,
which, however, brought her little fame, and small pecuniary emolument.
But in 1844, by a skilful and happy letter to the conductor of the _New
York Mirror_, she so attracted the attention of the fastidious and
brilliant editor of that magazine, that he engaged her as a constant
contributor. This arrangement, though of great pecuniary advantage, was,
in a religious view, a snare to her. As a writer of light, graceful
stories of a purely worldly character, she had in this country, few
rivals, and her name, attached to a tale or a poem, became a passport to
popular favor. In a letter to her aged pastor, written a year after her
marriage, she laments her extreme worldliness at that period, which she
says, even led her to be ashamed of her former desire to be a
missionary. Yet her writings are marked by purity, and generally
inculcated nothing unfriendly either to virtue or religion. But it was
the religion of sentiment, and the virtue of the natural heart; of which
it must be confessed we find far more in fictitious tales, than in real
life. When we consider the nobleness of the motive that led her to seek
a popular path to favor and emolument--to increase the comforts of her
excellent and honored mother--our censure, were we disposed to indulge
any, is disarmed and almost