What time she braided up her hair With summer buds and sprays of flowers, It was as if some saint had shed Heaven's light on this dim world of ours; And kneeling where her feet have trod, We watched to see the glory break When angel fingers at the dawn Heaven's portals opened for her sake. Of these lines Edmund Clarence Stedman wrote with youthful enthusiasm: "This is almost equal to the picture of Madeline in 'The Eve of St. Agnes,' as she kneels before the oriel window of the casement, high and triple-arched, in all the holiness of prayer." The stories which the young writer contributed to the gift-books bore the most startling titles: "Inez Caisco; or, The Flower of Catalonia"; "Beatrice; or, The Beautiful Tambourine Girl"; "Evilia; or, The Enchantress." Of Isabel Sydenham, the heroine of one of these tales, it is told that she "threw open her casement,"--no self-respecting story-teller of the mid-century called a window anything but a casement,--and sighed: "If he were only here, how we might enjoy the surpassing loveliness!" Of this sensitive creature, who naturally "yearns" for all sorts of impossible things, her creator remarks that "ideality was the predominating characteristic of her mind." According to gift-book standards no heroine could be more eminently satisfactory. Not content with being a contributor to the annuals of others, Miss Chandler compiled a gift-book of her own: "The Book of the Boudoir; a Gift for All Seasons, Edited by Ellen Louise." By her publisher's insistence her own portrait formed the frontispiece, and the book contained also an engraving of Elmwood Cottage. The letter-press opened with an "Invocation to the Spirit of Poetry" by the youthful editor, and besides sketches and verses of her own the volume offered contributions by Mrs. Sigourney, Virginia F. Townsend, George S. Burleigh, Amanda M. Douglas, and others. With this publication Miss Chandler may be said to have come fully and formally into full-fledged authorship. She was deeply tinged with the sentimental fashions which reigned universally in America in the middle of the nineteenth century, and which had, indeed, by no means disappeared in England; but she had genuine feeling, a natural instinct for literary form, an ear unusually sensitive to metrical effect, and her real power had already shown itself unmistakably. From this time on her progress in her art was sure and constant. One influence of her youthful environment may be mentioned here since it has been often commented upon. The strain of melancholy habitual in Mrs. Moulton's poetry has been ascribed to the shadow which was cast upon her childhood by the sternness of the Calvinistic faith. An English critic has written: