picking out any grain of sense
there might be in what I said, but never allowing any one materially to
interfere with her independence of thought and action. Though her
silence sometimes left one under the impression that she agreed when she
did not, she never gave a flattering opinion, and thus her words were
golden, whether for praise or blame."

"Mary's" father was a man of remarkable intelligence, but of strong, not
to say violent prejudices, all running in favour of Republicanism and
Dissent. No other county but Yorkshire could have produced such a man.
His brother had been a _detenu_ in France, and had afterwards voluntarily
taken up his residence there. Mr. T. himself had been much abroad, both
on business and to see the great continental galleries of paintings. He
spoke French perfectly, I have been told, when need was; but delighted
usually in talking the broadest Yorkshire. He bought splendid engravings
of the pictures which he particularly admired, and his house was full of
works of art and of books; but he rather liked to present his rough side
to any stranger or new-comer; he would speak his broadest, bring out his
opinions on Church and State in their most startling forms, and, by and
by, if he found his hearer could stand the shock, he would involuntarily
show his warm kind heart, and his true taste, and real refinement. His
family of four sons and two daughters were brought up on Republican
principles; independence of thought and action was encouraged; no "shams"
tolerated. They are scattered far and wide: Martha, the younger
daughter, sleeps in the Protestant cemetery at Brussels; Mary is in New
Zealand; Mr. T. is dead. And so life and death have dispersed the circle
of "violent Radicals and Dissenters" into which, twenty years ago, the
little, quiet, resolute clergyman's daughter was received, and by whom
she was truly loved and honoured.

January and February of 1837 had passed away, and still there was no
reply from Southey. Probably she had lost expectation and almost hope
when at length, in the beginning of March, she received the letter
inserted in Mr. C. C. Southey's life of his Father, vol. iv. p. 327.

After accounting for his delay in replying to hers by the fact of a long
absence from home, during which his letters had accumulated, whence "it
has lain unanswered till the last of a numerous file, not from disrespect
or indifference to its contents, but because in truth it is not an e