Thou know’st my inmost feelings best;
O, teach me to obey.”
She took little pleasure in the common sports of children; her amusements were almost entirely intellectual. If she played with a doll, or a kitten, she invested it with some historical or dramatic character, 32 and whether Mary, queen of Scots, or Elizabeth, the character was always well sustained.
In her seventh year, her health became visibly delicate, and she was taken to Saratoga springs and to New York, from which excursions she derived much physical advantage, and great intellectual pleasure; but she returned to her native village with feelings of admiration and enthusiasm for its natural beauties, heightened by contrast. As her health began again to fail in the autumn, and the vicinity to the lake seemed unfavorable to the health of Mrs. Davidson, the family went to Canada to pass the winter with the eldest daughter.
Margaret grew stronger, but her mother derived no benefit from the change, and for eighteen months remained a helpless invalid, during which time her little daughter was her constant companion and attendant. “Her tender solicitude,” says Mrs. D., “endeared her to me beyond any other earthly thing. Although under the roof of a beloved and affectionate daughter, and having constantly with me an experienced and judicious nurse, yet the soft and gentle voice of my little darling was more than medicine to my worn-out frame. If her delicate hand smoothed my pillow, it was soft to my aching temples, and her sweet smile would cheer me in the lowest depths of despondency. She would draw for me—read to me—and often, when writing at her little table, would surprise me by some tribute of love, which never failed to operate as a cordial to my heart. At a time when my life was despaired of, she wrote the following verses while sitting at my bed:—
‘I’ll to thy arms in rapture fly,
And wipe the tear that dims thine eye;
Thy pleasure will be my delight,
Till thy pure spirit takes its flight.