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126 verse. The Columbia Institute had a monthly magazine, The Guardian, to which she was a contributor. She was a lover of the poetry of earth and also of what Byron calls "The Poetry of Heaven." She made a pet of the star Aldebaran and addressed to it a poem in The Guardian. It is a singular coincidence that whilst she was writing for The Guardian, the unknown college student whom she afterwards captivated was contributing to The Collegian, of the University of Virginia. During their engagement, he sent her an article which she had published in The Guardian, and she sent him one which Mr. White issued in the Southern Literary Messenger.

Miss Otey was ambitious and her zealous devotion to her numerous scholastic duties rendered a recuperation of her health desirable. Soon after her graduation her father took her to the Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs, in Virginia. With health restored, she got to Petersburg, Virginia, where she paid a double visit to her mother's brother, Capt. Wm. Pannill; for she went to Raleigh, N. C., to visit her father's brother Mr. Walter Otey and returned to Petersburg. In October, 1840, Mr. B. B. Minor had settled there and commenced the practice of law. He was led irresistibly into the society of this fascinating stranger, and whilst she was in Raleigh sent her a parody on one of her songs.