ss faded forever;
but _remembered_ she is with interest, with fervor, with enthusiasm;
with all that heart can feel, and more than words can tell.

To me there has been but one such, and that is she whom I describe. "Was
she beautiful?" you ask. I also will ask you one question: "If an angel
from heaven should dwell in human form, and animate any human face,
would not that face be lovely? It might not be _beautiful_, but would it
not be lovely?" She was not beautiful except after this fashion.

How well I remember her, as she used sometimes to sit thinking, with her
head resting on her hand, her face mild and placid, with a quiet October
sunshine in her blue eyes, and an ever-present smile over her whole
countenance. I remember the sudden sweetness of look when any one spoke
to her; the prompt attention, the quick comprehension of things before
you uttered them, the obliging readiness to leave for you whatever she
was doing.

To those who mistake occasional pensiveness for melancholy, it might
seem strange to say that my Aunt Mary was always happy. Yet she was so.
Her spirits never rose to buoyancy, and never sunk to despondency. I
know that it is an article in the sentimental confession of faith that
such a character cannot be interesting. For this impression there is
some ground. The placidity of a medium commonplace mind is
uninteresting, but the placidity of a strong and well-governed one
borders on the sublime. Mutability of emotion characterizes inferior
orders of being; but He who combines all interest, all excitement, all
perfection, is "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." And if there
be any thing sublime in the idea of an almighty mind, in perfect peace
itself, and, therefore, at leisure to bestow all its energies on the
wants of others, there is at least a reflection of the same sublimity in
the character of that human being who has so quieted and governed the
world within, that nothing is left to absorb sympathy or distract
attention from those around.

Such a woman was my Aunt Mary. Her placidity was not so much the result
of temperament as of choice. She had every susceptibility of suffering
incident to the noblest and most delicate construction of mind; but they
had been so directed, that, instead of concentrating thought on self,
they had prepared her to understand and feel for others.

She was, beyond all things else, a sympathetic person, and her
character, like the green in a landscape, was