“List! a faint, a far-off chime! ’Tis the knell of holy time, Chiming from the city’s spires, From the hamlet’s altar fires, Waking woods and lonely dells, Pleasant are the Sabbath bells.” This introduction began one of her most beautiful friendships; it lasted for half a century. She learned to know and love the poet’s sweet, noble sister, Elizabeth, and Lucy was treated by her like a sister. There was something in Miss Larcom’s nature not unlike Mr. Whittier’s,--the same love for the unobserved beauties of country life, the same energy and fire, the same respect for the honest and sturdy elements in New England life, the same affection for the sea and mountains, and a similar deep religious sense of the nearness of God. Having worked five years in the spinning-room, she was transferred at her own request to the position of book-keeper, in the cloth-room of the Lawrence Mills. Here, having more time to herself, she devoted to study the minutes not required by her work, reading extracts from the best books, and writing many of the poems that appeared in the “Offering.” It was her habit to carry a sort of prose sketch-book, not unlike an artist’s, in which she would jot down in words the exact impression made upon her by a scene or a natural object, using both as models from which to draw pictures in words. In this way she would describe, for instance, an autumn leaf, accurately giving its shape, color, number of ribs and veins, ending with a reflection on the decay of beauty. In turning over the leaves of this sketch-book, one finds descriptions of the gnarled tree with its bare branches thrusting themselves forth in spiteful crookedness; the butterfly lying helpless in the dust with its green robes sprinkled with ashes; the wind in the pines singing a melancholy tune in the summer sunlight; and other subjects of equal beauty. As an illustration of these prose-poems, the suggestion for which she derived from Jean Paul Richter, the following may be of interest: it is called, “Flowers beneath Dead Leaves:”-- “Two friends were walking together beside a picturesque mill-stream. While they walked they talked of mortal life, its meaning and its end; and, as is almost inevitable with such themes, the current of their thoughts gradually lost its cheerful flow. “‘This is a miserable world,’ said one. ‘The black shroud of sorrow overhangs everything here.’ “‘Not so,’ replied the other. ‘Sorrow is not a shroud; it is only the covering Hope wraps about her when she sleeps.’ “Just then they entered an oak grove. It was early spring, and the trees were bare; but the last year’s leaves lay thick as snowdrifts upon the ground.