This symmetry of character, a certain fine balance of the gifts of mind and heart, was the natural outcome, it may be, of a worthy ancestry. So far as is known, the Chandlers lived originally in Hampshire, England, where, in the sixteenth century, arms were granted to them. Many of these Chandlers were men distinguished in their day. In 1887 was commemorated at Philadelphia the two hundredth anniversary of the arrival in this country of one of the first Chandlers known to have immigrated. This was a follower of Fox, who fled from persecution, and settled in Pennsylvania. A group of ten English Puritans settled long before the Revolution in what was afterward the township of Pomfret, Connecticut: and from one of these was descended Lucius Chandler, the father of Louise. The Chandler family throughout gave evidence of decided intellectual ability, and this was strengthened by marriages with other sound Puritan stock. Through her paternal grandmother Mrs. Moulton was descended from the Rev. Aaron Cleveland, of literary reputation in the late eighteenth century, and of account in his day as a wit. This relationship linked her in remote cousinship with Edmund Clarence Stedman, a tie which both cherished. The two poets congratulated themselves on a common great-grandmother who was a classical scholar, famed for her familiarity with Greek. [Illustration: ELMWOOD COTTAGE, POMFRET, CONN., THE GIRLHOOD HOME OF LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON _Page 5_] Lucius L. Chandler married Louisa Rebecca Clark, also of good English ancestry. Mrs. Chandler has been described by Harriet Prescott Spofford as "a gentle, gracious woman, a noted beauty in her youth, but singularly free from the vanity and selfishness of most noted beauties." The only surviving child of this marriage was born at Pomfret on April 10, 1835, and was christened Ellen Louise. Mr. Chandler's farm lay on the edge of the quiet Connecticut town, the landscape pleasantly diversified by adjacent hills and forests, and the modest, comfortable home was surrounded by flowers and trees. In later years, recalling her childhood, Mrs. Moulton wrote: My thoughts go home to that old brown house With its low roof sloping down to the east, And its garden fragrant with roses and thyme That blossom no longer except in rhyme, Where the honey-bees used to feast. Afar in the west the great hills rose, Silent and steadfast, and gloomy and gray. I thought they were giants, and doomed to keep Their watch while the world should wake or sleep, Till the trumpet should sound on the judgment-day. And I was as young as the hills were old, And the world was warm with the breath of spring; And the roses red and the lilies white Budded and bloomed for my heart's delight, And the birds in my heart began to sing.