Mrs. Pickard had been educated in Boston, and well educated, having a naturally vigorous mind and strong common sense. She was a woman of self-culture, loving books and choosing the best, conversing with marked propriety as well as ease, and exhibiting decided energy and generosity of character. In person, she is described as remarkable; of so commanding figure, benignant countenance, and dignified demeanor, as to draw general observation in public, and suggest the thought once expressed by a gentleman of intelligence,--"She seems to me as if she were born for an empress." Yet her empire was only the home, and her life peculiarly domestic; with enough of discipline and change to prove her fortitude, but never to damp her cheerfulness. She was a Christian. In early life, perhaps from causes already referred to, her mind had been disturbed, and apparently doubts raised, though never fixed, by sceptical writers and so-called philosophical reasoners,--more common in good society then than now, and more bold and insidious, notwithstanding our complaints of present degeneracy. A gentleman to whom Mrs. Pickard had once communicated her difficulties, and who was less a believer than she, spoke of her the day after her death, in reference to that conflict, as "one of strong mind, who took nothing upon trust" even at that early age when she approached him with "obstinate questionings." Whatever the effect upon his faith, her own was strengthened by all inquiry and experience. She was a member of the Episcopal Church, though apparently less a devotee to its ritual than Mr. Pickard. Not sect, but piety, was the source of her power and peace. "In religion," says one most intimate, "she was unostentatious and charitable, but decided and sincere; and her whole life was an exhibition of the ascendancy of principle over mere taste and feeling." Such was the mother, who was the constant companion and instructor of an only daughter, through the whole of childhood; for Mary never attended school, that we can find, until she was nearly thirteen years old. But in that best of schools for the very young, an intelligent and quiet home, she was well instructed in the common branches, in habits of order, refinement, and frugality, in principles of undeviating truth and integrity, and in that most essential of all accomplishments for a girl, whether in ordinary or exalted station, the use of the needle. Her mother also taught her to sing, being herself passionately fond of music, with one of the sweetest voices, and, though not a great performer, enough so to impart a love of it to her child which always continued, associated with holy recollections. "Often," says one, "at early evening, just before going to rest, have I seen the little girl upon her mother's lap, and have heard her singing her evening hymn:-- 'Teach me to live, that I may dread The grave as little as my bed'; &c."