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 another separation, fatal and afflictive, soon took place. The interesting and accomplished Miss Hyde was taken away in the midst of usefulness and promise—mowed down like a rose-tree in bloom, March 26th, 1816, at the age of twenty-four. Of this beloved companion of her youth, Mrs. Sigourney wrote an interesting memoir, soon after her decease; and she again recurs to her with gushing tenderness, in the piece entitled “Home of an early friend,” written nearly thirty years after the scene of bereavement. In flowing verse, and prose almost as harmonious as music, she has twined a lasting memorial of the worth of the departed, and of that tender friendship which was a marked incident in her own young life.

Before the death of her friend, she had transferred her residence to Hartford, and again entered, with fresh enthusiasm, upon the task of instruction. In this path she was happy and successful; it was regarded as a privilege to be received into her circle, and many of her pupils became life-long friends, strewing her subsequent pathway with flowers.

In Hartford, she was at once received as a welcome and cherished inmate of the family of Madam Wadsworth, relict of Col. Jeremiah Wadsworth, whose mother was a Talcot, and nearly connected with the revered Madam Lathrop. The mansion-house in which Madam Wadsworth and the aged sisters of her husband dwelt, stood upon the spot now occupied by the Wadsworth Athenæum. It was a spacious structure; unadorned, but deeply interesting in its historic associations. To the young guest it seemed a consecrated roof, whose every room was peopled with images of the past; nor was her ear ever inattentive to those descriptive sketches of the heroic age of our country, with which its venerable inhabitants enlivened the evening hours. The poem, “On the Removal of an Ancient Mansion,” is a graphic delineation of the impressions made on her mind by her acquaintance with the threshold and hearth-stone of this fine old house, and her communion with its excellent inmates.

Another member of the same family, Daniel Wadsworth, Esq., had always manifested a lively interest in her mental cultivation. He had known her in childhood, under the roof of Madam Lathrop, and had there seen some of her early effusions, both in prose and verse. At his earnest solicitation, she made a collection of her fugitive pieces, and under his patronage, and with his influence and liberality cast around her as a shield, she first ventured to appear before the public as an author. Mr. Wadsworth’s regard for her suffered no diminution till his death, which took place in 1848. Few authors have found a friend so kind and so true. Of her affection for him and his amiable wife, her writings contain many proofs. Her Monody on the death of Mr. Wadsworth has the following noble stanza:— “Oh, friend! thou didst o’ermaster well The pride of wealth, and multiply