claimed a right to read them. The ease with which in these she seemed
to talk with her pen, the mingled pathos and humor with which she would
relate all the little joys and sorrows of daily life, leaving her
readers between a smile and a tear, showed the same characteristics
which afterward made her published writings so much more generally
attractive than the graver ones of her elder sister. But Louisa's
failing health soon after her marriage, and the long years of suffering
which followed, prevented her ever doing justice to the expectations her
friends had formed for her.

The occasion of my next visit to Portland was a letter from Mrs. Payson
to my mother, who was her constant correspondent, in which she spoke
sadly of an indisposition she feared was the precursor of serious
illness, but which chiefly troubled her on account of Lizzy's distress
that her school prevented her being constantly with her mother. An
offer on my part to come and take her place, in her hours of necessary
absence, was at once accepted. Mrs. Payson's illness proved less serious
than had been feared, and once more I passed several pleasant weeks in
that house; but the pleasantest hours of the day were those in which
Lizzy, returning from school, sat down at her mother's bedside and
amused her with her talk about her pupils, their various characters and
the progress they had made in their studies, or related little incidents
of the school-room--with her usual frankness not omitting those
which revealed some fault, or what she considered such, on her part,
especially her impulsiveness that led her often to say things she
afterward regretted. As an example, one of her pupils was reading French
to her and coming to the expression Mon Dieu! so common in French
narratives, had pronounced it so badly that Lizzy exclaimed, "Mon Doo?
He would not know himself what you meant!" The laugh which it was
impossible to repress, did not diminish her compunction at what she