She was absolutely without appetite for luxury,
or display, or praise, or influence, with entire indifference
to trifles. Not long before her marriage, one of her intimate
friends in the city, whose family were removing, proposed
to her to go with her to the new house, and, taking some articles
in her own hand, by way of trial artfully put into her hand
a broom, whilst she kept her in free conversation on some
speculative points, and this she faithfully carried across
Boston Common, from Summer Street to Hancock Street, without
hesitation or remark.
"Though entirely domestic in her habit and inclination, she
was everywhere a welcome visitor, and a favorite of society,
when she rarely entered it. The elegance of her tastes recommended
her to the elegant, who were swift to distinguish her as they
found her simple manners faultless. With her singular simplicity
and purity, such as society could not spoil, nor much affect,
she was only entertained by it, and really went into it as
children into a theatre,--to be diverted,--while her ready
sympathy enjoyed whatever beauty of person, manners, or ornament
it had to show.
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