She is the presiding genius of the fireside, where she creates an atmosphere of serenity and contentment suitable for the nurture and growth of character in its best forms.

She is by her very constitution compassionate, gentle, patient, and self-denying.

Loving, hopeful, trustful, her eye sheds brightness everywhere.

It shines upon coldness and warms it, upon suffering and relieves it, upon sorrow and cheers it:-- "Her silver flow Of subtle-paced counsel in distress, Right to the heart and brain, though undescried, Winning its way with extreme gentleness Through all the outworks of suspicion's pride." Woman has been styled "the angel of the unfortunate." She is ready to help the weak, to raise the fallen, to comfort the suffering.

It was characteristic of woman, that she should have been the first to build and endow an hospital.