Miss Legaré had resolved to make herself mistress of the languages even before she could read and write English with any great proficiency. She had in these studies, and other branches of scholarship, the best teachers that could be procured. Her mother was her first instructor in music. But it was otherwise in the art to which she had determined especially to devote herself; no efficient teacher of drawing could be found. Although remuneration for lessons was liberal--thirty dollars per term being paid--it was almost impossible to find any one capable of giving proper instruction. The young girl was therefore obliged to practice unaided the art she began to love with increased enthusiasm, and her progress was still more retarded by the want of models or scenes in nature that might take her fancy. The low country of South Carolina--affording the only landscapes she had ever seen--abounds in flat and swampy districts. There is much beauty for an unaccustomed eye in the bleached wilderness of pine-land, with its stately, solemn groves, through which the wind surges with ocean-like murmur; but it is not of the kind available for the artist. Nor is that of the swamp, with its immeasurable extent of wood and impenetrable undergrowth, through which may be seen at intervals the dark, turbid water soaking its way through masses of tangled weeds, the slimy abode of reptiles, or the hiding-place of the water-fowl. There are green morasses choked with vegetation, into which the sunbeams never penetrate; or over the quagmire, rank with decay, rise giant trees, twined with thick creepers, and burying the matted brush beneath them in black shadow. The trees are often loaded with the gray hanging moss that forms the ornament of woods in the low lands. The mixture of gloom and beauty, of luxuriance and horror, is a striking novelty to the Northern visitor. The ragged thickets, too, are alternated with islands of lovely verdure; the water-lily decks the dark lakelet with its broad leaves and white flowers; and graceful vines festoon the evergreens, mingling bright blossoms with their leaves of sombre verdure.