tried to soothe the child by promising not to do so again: Lucretia's face brightened; a sunny smile played through her tears as she replied, "O mamma, I am not afraid you will do so again, for I have burned them all;" and so she had! This reserve proceeded from nothing cold or exclusive in her character; never was there a more loving or sympathetic creature. It would be difficult to say which was most rare, her modesty, or the genius it sanctified. She did not learn to write till she was between six and seven; her passion for knowledge was then rapidly developing; she read with the closest attention, and was continually running to her parents with questions and remarks that startled them. At a very early age, her mother implanted the seeds of religion, the first that should be sown in the virgin soil of the heart. That the dews of Heaven fell upon them, is evident from the breathing of piety throughout her poetry, and still more from "=its precious fruit in her life. Her mother remarks, that, "from her earliest years, she evinced a fear of doing anything displeasing in the sight of God; and if, in her gayest sallies, she caught a look of disapprobation from me, she would ask, with the most artless simplicity, 'O mother, was that wicked?'"
There are very early, in most children's lives, certain conventional limits to their humanity, only certain forms of animal life that are respected and cherished. A robin, a butterfly, or a kitten is a legitimate object of their love and caresses; but woe to the beetle, the caterpillar, or the rat that is thrown upon their tender mercies! Lucretia Davidson made no such artificial discriminations; she seemed to have an instinctive kindness for every liv-
