The name of Hugh Swinton Legaré is endeared to all South Carolinians, the more so as his genius and literary attainments commanded celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic. His sister’s talents are not inferior to his, though she has filled no place in the national councils nor at foreign courts, but in a quiet and uneventful life has made her impression on the social and intellectual advancement of the day. The youngest of three children who survived the father, she was born in Charleston, South Carolina, where her childhood and youth were spent. Mrs. Legaré, left a widow before she had completed her twenty-eighth year, devoted her time and means entirely to the education of her little ones. She was a woman of extraordinary mental powers, and her mind had been sedulously cultivated. Her ideas of education were broad and comprehensive, and her efforts were directed to the training of her children in such a manner as to make their lives exemplary, useful, and happy, as well as to develop their intellects. How well she succeeded the honorable career of all her children testifies. The noble character and life of her eldest daughter, Mrs. Bryan, and the brilliant fame achieved by the son, add evidence to the fact that she was one of those mothers whose offspring rise up to call her blessed. Mrs. Legaré died on the 1st of January, 1843, in the seventy-second year of her age. It was not strange that the children should grow up cherishing a deep and intense love for so excellent a mother. Mary, an infant when bereft of her father, very early showed a fondness for study, and a special predilection for the languages and the fine arts. Even before she was able to express emotions of admiration or delight, she evinced a remarkable sensibility both to melody and color. When less than three years old, she would be affected to tears or moved to joyous mirth by different musical sounds. Beautiful pictures had for her young fancy irresistible fascination at an age when she could hardly be supposed able to recognize the objects they represented. Her mother frequently observed of her little Mary that, when she showed signs of impatience or weariness, or fretted for want of amusement, all that was necessary to soothe her discontent or charm her into happiness was to furnish her with paper and a pencil. The child would amuse herself for hours with her drawings. Her decided talents for music and painting--coloring in particular--were soon perceived by this tender mother, who determined to give her daughter every possible aid in the cultivation of tastes so congenial to her own, Mrs. Legaré being herself accomplished in no ordinary degree in both these lady-like pursuits.