ife with all its constituent factors of
ancestry, home, and surroundings; for they were so inherent in her
thoughts and feelings that you could hardly separate her from them in
your consideration. But that is impossible. Disinterested benevolence
was the native air of the house into which she was born, and she was
an embodiment of that idea. To devote herself to some poor outcast, to
reform a distorted soul, to give all she had to the most abject, to do
all she could for the despised and rejected,--this was her craving and
absorbing desire. I remember some comical instances of the pursuance
of this self-abnegation, where the returns were, to say the least,
disappointing; but she was never discouraged. It would be easy to name
many who received a lifelong stimulus and aid at her hands, either
intellectual or moral. She had much to do with the development of some
remarkable careers, as well as with the regeneration of many poor and
abandoned souls.

She was in the lives of her dear ones, and they in hers, to a very
unusual degree; and her life-threads are twined inextricably in theirs
forever. She was a complete woman,--brain, will, affections, all, to
the greatest extent, active and unselfish; her character was a harmony
of many strong and diverse elements; her conscience was a great rock
upon which her whole nature rested; her hands were deft and cunning;
her ingenious brain was like a master mechanic at expedients; and
in executive and administrative power, as well as in device and
comprehension, she was a marvel. If she had faults, they are
indistinguishable in the brightness and solidity of her whole
character. She was ready to move into her place in any sphere, and
adjust herself to any work God should give her to do. She must
be happy, and shedding happiness, wherever she is; for that is an
inseparable quality and function of her identity.

She passed calmly out of this life, and lay at rest in her own home,
in that dear room so full of memories of her presence, with flowers
to deck her bed, and many of her dearest friends around her; while the
verses which her beloved sister Caroline had selected seemed easily to
speak with Jane's own voice, as they read:--

Prepare the house, kind friends; drape it and deck it
With leaves and blossoms fair:
Throw open doors and windows, and call hither
The sunshine and soft air.

Let all the house, from floor to ceiling, look
Its noblest and its best;
F