have ventured to say thus much of the mother, who still survives to weep and to rejoice over her dead child more than many parents over their living ones, were it not to prove that Lucretia Davidson's character was not miraculous, but that this flower of paradise was nurtured and trained by natural means and influences.
The physical delicacy of this fragile creature was apparent in infancy. When eighteen months old, she had a typhus fever, which threatened her life; but nature put forth its mysterious energy, and she became stronger and healthier than before her illness. No records were made of her early childhood, save that she was by turns very gay and very thoughtful, exhibiting thus early these common manifestations of extreme sensibility. Her first literary acquisition indicated her after course. She learned her letters at once. At the age of four she was sent to the Plattsburg Academy, where she learned to read and to form letters in sand, after the Lancasterian method. As soon as she could read, her books drew her away from the plays of childhood, and she was constantly found absorbed in the little volumes that her father lavished upon her. Her mother, on some occasion, in haste to write a letter, looked in vain for a sheet of paper. A whole quire had strangely disappeared from the table on which the writing implements usually lay; she expressed a natural vexation. Her little girl came forward, confused, and said, "Mamma, I have used it." Her mother, knowing she had never been taught to write, was amazed, and asked what possible use she could have for it. Lucretia burst into tears, and replied that "she did not like to tell." Her mother respected the childish mystery,
