And who was Peggy?
She was one of the best and noblest women God ever made.

She was a treasury of heaven's own influences.
And yet she wore the form of a servant, and like her divine Master, there was "no beauty" in her that one should desire to look upon her.
She had followed my mother through good report and ill report.

She had clung to her in her fallen fortunes as something sacred, almost divine.
As the Hebrew to the ark of the covenant,--as the Greek to his country's palladium,--as the children of Freedom to the star-spangled banner,--so she clung in adversity to her whom in prosperity she almost worshipped.
I learned in after years, all that we owed this humble, self-sacrificing, devoted friend.

I did not know it then--at least not all--not half.

I knew that she labored most abundantly for us,--that she ministered to my mother with as much deference as if she were an empress, anticipating her slightest wants and wishes, deprecating her gratitude, and seeming ashamed of her own goodness and industry.