A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveler between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly planned
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel-light.
Wordsworth.
“I have just been visiting Miss Agnes Lincoln,” said my young friend Kate Wilson to me one morning. “Truly, Miss Enna, she is the most charming woman I have ever known—always excepting, of course, your own dear self. Though no longer young, she is still beautiful—intelligent, clever, without the slightest tinge of pedantry; gentle and loveable. Why is it that she has never married? She has been a devoted daughter and sister; I have always felt surprise and regret that she should not have been a wife.”