t objects. Now,
it was the visitation of the sick, that had possession of her; now, it
was the sheltering of the houseless; now, it was the elementary teaching
of the densely ignorant; now, it was the raising up of those who had
wandered and got trodden under foot; now, it was the wider employment of
her own sex in the general business of life; now, it was all these things
at once. Perfectly unselfish, swift to sympathise and eager to relieve,
she wrought at such designs with a flushed earnestness that disregarded
season, weather, time of day or night, food, rest. Under such a hurry of
the spirits, and such incessant occupation, the strongest constitution
will commonly go down. Hers, neither of the strongest nor the weakest,
yielded to the burden, and began to sink.

To have saved her life, then, by taking action on the warning that shone
in her eyes and sounded in her voice, would have been impossible, without
changing her nature. As long as the power of moving about in the old way
was left to her, she must exercise it, or be killed by the restraint. And
so the time came when she could move about no longer, and took to her
bed.

All the restlessness gone then, and all the sweet patience of her natural
disposition purified by the resignation of her soul, she lay upon her bed
through the whole round of changes of the seasons. She lay upon her bed
through fifteen months. In all that time, her old cheerfulness never
quitted her. In all that time, not an impatient or a querulous minute
can be remembered.

At length, at midnight on the second of February, 1864, she turned down a
leaf of a little book she was reading, and shut it up.

The ministering hand that had copied the verses into the tiny album was
soon around her neck, and she quietly asked, as the clock was on the
stroke of one:

"Do you think I am dying, mamma?"

"I think you are very, very ill to-night, my dear!"

"Send for my sister. My feet are so cold. Lift me up?"

Her sister entering as they raised her, she said: "It has come at last!"
And with a bright and happy smile, looked upward, and departed.

Well had she written:

Why shouldst thou fear the beautiful angel, Death,
Who waits thee at the portals of the skies,
Ready to kiss away thy struggling breath,
Ready with gentle hand to close thine eyes?

Oh what were life, if life were all? Thine eyes
Are blinded by their tears, or thou wouldst see
Thy treasures wait