“She clung to her old friends without regard to their position in life, and her time and talents seemed devoted to their happiness; she was thinking constantly of some little surprise, some gift, some journey, some pleasure, by which she could contribute to the enjoyment of others. ‘Blessing she was, God made her so;’ and with her death, with many of her friends is dried up forever the richest fountain of their happiness. “She was reserved in the expression of her religious views. As is natural with youthful and independent minds, she had little comparative respect for creeds and forms, perhaps less than she would have manifested in maturer years, but her intimate friends knew that she was always governed by a sense of religious duty, that her relations to her Creator and her Saviour were the subject of her constant thought, and that she trusted for her future happiness to the kind mercies of a benevolent Father, to the conscientious improvement of all her talents, to a life devoted to deeds of kindness, and to a heart as pure and unspotted as a child’s. At home—ah! that house, all ‘emptied of delight,’ over which she presided with so much dignity and kindness, that forsaken parlor where all the happiness that social life can give was wont to be so freely and hospitably enjoyed; the weeping servants—those bleeding and broken hearts—let these tell what she was at home! “But she is gone! and young though she was, she has accomplished much. She has done much to lay the foundation in our midst of a mode of social life more kind, genuine, and cultivated than most of what is called society; and she has left behind her the example of her life, which, though most private and retired, will always be a blessing to her friends, and through them, we trust, to a wider circle for many coming years. “Farewell! “Forgive our tears for one removed, Thy creature whom we found so fair, We trust she lives in Thee, and there We find her worthier to be loved.” XIX. JANE APPLETON PIERCE. There are two classes of ladies of whom the biographer is compelled to write, and both are alike interesting. One includes those whose lives have been passed in the sunshine of prosperity and allurements of fashionable society, who have been widely known, and who have mingled with the leading characters of this country. The lives of such women include innumerable incidents of public and private interest, and are, in fact, necessary to a perfect history of their time. They are a part of the great world about them, and it as easy to gather the facts of their careers, as of the great men with whom they have been associated nearly or remotely.