"She was barely twenty when she married William Upham Moulton, a man of culture and of much personal attraction. Lingering a moment on the church porch in the sunset light, she has been described by one who saw her as a radiant being, in her bridal veil, blooming, blushing, full of life and joy and love. An exquisite skin, the 'rose crushed on ivory,' hazel eyes, with dark lashes and brows, and a confiding, fearless glance, small white teeth, a delightful smile, cheek and chin having the antique line, all united to make a loveliness which no portrait has successfully rendered, and which tender consideration and grace of manner accented to wonderful charm." Among her girlish treasures preserved for more than fifty years was a small blank book, on the fly-leaf of which she had written: "Ellen Louise Chandler Moulton, from my husband, Aug. 27, 1855, Elmwood Cottage, Pomfret, Conn."; and underneath in quotation, the lines: "Who shall decide? The bridal day, oh, make it A day of sacrament and present prayer; Though every circumstance conspire to take it Out of the common prophecy of care! Let not vain merriment and giddy laughter Be the last sound in the departing ear, For God alone can tell what cometh after-- What store of sorrow, or what cause to fear." Mr. Moulton brought his bride to Boston, where she was at once introduced into those literary circles made up of the chief men and women of letters. "Here," said one who remembers her entrance into Boston life, "the bright, quick, impassioned girl speedily blossomed into the brilliant woman." In some reminiscences of her own in recalling this delightful period she said: "Every one was very good to me--Dr. Holmes, Longfellow, Whittier--all those on whose work I had been brought up. And then the broader religious thought of Boston began to conquer the Puritanism in which I had been educated. Whittier was a Quaker, but he believed most of all in the loving Fatherhood of God,--the Divine care which would somehow, somewhere, make creation a blessing to all on whom had been bestowed the unsought gift of life. He told me once how this conviction first came to him. It was a touching anecdote of his childhood when his mother's tenderness to the erring aroused in him the perception of the goodness of God. Whittier was a singularly modest man; if one praised his work he would say, 'Yes, but there should be a perfection of form, and what I do is full of faults.' Once, at an evening party, he was vainly entreated to recite one of his poems. 'No,' he said, 'but I wish she would,' pointing to me. I then read 'The Swan Song of Parson Avery,' and when I had finished he came across the room and said, 'Why, thee has really made me think I've written a beautiful poem.'