Agnes, the elder sister--Joanna's faithful and beloved companion through a long life; and to whom, on entering her seventieth year, she addressed the exquisite poem of the "Birthday"--which no one will ever read unmoved--was very early an accomplished girl. Unlike Joanna, she had always been a diligent, attentive scholar; and unlike her also, was possessed of a remarkably retentive memory. In her companionship, and in the entire leisure of her six years' seclusion among the picturesque scenery of Long Calderwood, it may be supposed that Joanna's powerful intellect would have been awakened, and her wonderfully fertile imagination begun to assume some of those varied forms of truth and beauty which have since impressed themselves so vividly on the hearts and minds of her contemporaries. But like the graceful forms which the eye of the young sculptor has only yet seen in vision, those divine creations of her genius, before which the world was afterward to bow, still slumbered in the marble. Her genius partook of the slow growth, as well as the hardy vigor, of the pine-tree of her native rocks; but it had inherent power to shoot its roots deep down in the human heart, and to spread its branches toward the heavens in green and enduring beauty. In these years (from her sixteenth to her twenty-second), the only tendency she showed toward what afterward became the master-current of her mind, was in being a fervent worshiper of Shakspeare. She carefully studied select passages; delighted in getting her two favorite young friends--Miss Miller, and the lively Miss Graham of Gairbraid--to take different parts with her, and would so spout through a whole play with infinite satisfaction. Still she was no general student; and we are doubtful if at any time of her life she can be considered to have been a _great_ reader.