The former also was a writer of ability, and having a thorough knowledge of the politics of his State, frequently discussed them in the local journals with a ready and trenchant pen.

Mrs. Hardcastle was educated at Bedford Female College, but is indebted to her father for her best and earliest tuition.  At the age of fourteen her first verses, written on the death of a little friend of her own age, were published in the Virginia Sentinel.  She was an occasional contributor to the Literacy Companion, Magnolia Weekly, and other Southern periodicals.

Mrs. Hardcastle was married in 1863 to Dr. Jerome H. Hardcastle, then a surgeon in the hospital at Liberty, Va.  After the war they came to Maryland, and subsequently, in 1876, to Cecilton, in this county, where they have since resided.  They are the parents of five daughters and one son.

Like many other persons, Mrs. Hardcastle neglected to carefully preserve her poetical writings.  And was so unfortunate as to lose most of the few in her possession at the time of the evacuation of Richmond, in consequence of which the following poems are all it has been practicable to obtain, which is a matter of regret, inasmuch as they are by no means the best of her writings.

ON RECEIPT OF A BOUQUET.

I thank thee, my friend, for thy delicate gift,
  These fair and beautiful flowers,
They come to me now, like a boon from above,
  To gladden my pensive hours.

All the brilliant bloom, of the summer days,
  These lovely flowers restore;
And my childhood’s home, with its fields and flowers,
  Comes back to me once more.

How fragile and fair!—­some pale, some blushing,
  All breathing rarest perfume—­
But brighter and fairer they seem, my friend,
  Because from thee they come.

I know that this beauty is frail and brief—­
  That their fragrance and bloom must depart,
But like the mem’ry of thee, these flowers will live
  Forever enshrined in my heart.

OCTOBER.

Oh, days of the lovely October,
  How dear thou art to me;
Words are weak, when my soul would speak,
  In language taught by thee.

Not alone do thy glorious sunsets,
  Nor thy trees of a thousand dyes,
But all touch my heart with thy sweet spell,
  Oh, earth, and air, and skies.

In the gardens that shone with beauty,
  The flowers have faded, I know,
And here, by my favorite pathway,
  The roses no longer may blow.

But the leaves are burning with splendor,
  And I’ll weave them in garlands bright,
As I did in the sweet days of childhood,
  When my heart was aglow with delight.

I’ve ruby and sapphire, blended with gold,
  And here’s an emerald green,
A parting gift, for my coronet,
  From summer’s dying queen.