“A beautiful lady, very fair, with bright blue eyes and soft auburn hair bound round with a black velvet bandeau, came into the room smiling, eager and happy-looking, and, coming up to our beds, kissed us and told us that she loved little children and that she would be our mother. Never did stepmother make a prettier or sweeter impression. The next morning I remember we looked at her with awe. She seemed to us so fair, so delicate, so elegant that we were almost afraid to go near her. We must have been rough, red-cheeked, hearty country children, honest, obedient, and bashful. She was peculiarly dainty and neat in all her ways and arrangements; and I remember I used to feel breezy and rough and rude in her presence. We felt a little in awe of her, as if she were a strange princess rather than our own mamma; but her voice was very sweet, her ways of moving and speaking very graceful, and she took us up in her lap and let us play with her beautiful hands, which seemed wonderful things made of pearl and ornamented with strange rings.” In a letter written to her sister Mrs. Beecher gives her impressions of the group. She says: “We surprised them here almost as much as Mr. Beecher did us. They did not expect us till the following evening, but it was a joyful surprise to them. I never saw so many rosy cheeks and laughing eyes. The little ones were all joy and gladness. They began all, the first thing, to tell their dreams, for it seems they have dreamed of nothing else but father’s coming home; and some dreamed he came without me, and some that he brought two mothers. They all became immediately very free and social, except the youngest (Charles), and he is quite shy; calls me ‘lady,’ and sometimes ‘dear lady,’ but he loves aunt much the best. I have never seen a finer family of children, or a more agreeable. I am delighted with the great familiarity and great respect subsisting between parent and children. It is a house of great cheerfulness and comfort, and I am beginning to feel at home. Harriet and Henry are very desirous for me to send their love.” Later she writes of them: “I perceive them to be of agreeable habits, and some of them of uncommon intellect.... Harriet and Henry come next, and they are always hand-in-hand. They are as lovely children as I ever saw, amiable, affectionate, and very bright.... Our dwelling is pleasantly situated. The garden yields plenty of vegetables for the year, plenty of cherries, and the orchard furnishes cider and apples enough. A barrel of apple-sauce is made in the fall, which the children use instead of butter.... The boys are up before it is quite day, and make fires, and we are all down and have prayers before sunrise. Our domestic worship is very delightful. We sing a good deal and have reading aloud as much as we can.” The following silhouette, although following the last by quite an interval of time—it is in 1819—is our next family picture in order: