e to raise money to pay her
debts if she could be free to give her time to the lecture platform,
but an entire year had been occupied with her trial, and the money
received during this period had been required to meet its expenses. She
had a vital reason, however, for feeling that she could not leave
home--the rapidly-failing health of her beloved sister Guelma, her
senior by only twenty months, for more than half a century her close
companion, and for the past eight years living under the same roof. Her
heart had been broken by the death, a few years before, of her two
beautiful children just at the dawn of manhood and womanhood, and the
fatal malady consumption met with no resistance. Day by day she faded
away, the physician holding out no hope from the first. Her mother, now
eighty years of age, was completely crushed; the sister Mary was
principal of one of the city schools and busy all day, and Miss Anthony
felt it her imperative duty to remain beside the invalid, even could
she have overcome her grief sufficiently to appear in public.
Invitations to lecture came to her from many points but she refused
them and remained by the gentle sufferer day and night.[76] At daybreak
on November 9 the loved one passed away, and the tender hands of
sisters and of the only daughter performed the last ministrations.[77]

With Miss Anthony the love of family was especially intense as she had
formed no outside ties, and the parents, the brothers and sisters
filled her world of affection. The sundering of these bonds wrenched
her very heartstrings and upon every recurring anniversary the anguish
broke forth afresh, scarcely assuaged by the lapse of years. A short
time after this last sorrow she writes:

MY DEAR MOTHER: How continually, except the one hour when I am on
the platform, is the thought of you and your loss and my own with
me! How little we realize the constant presence in our minds of our
loved and loving ones until they are forever gone. We would not
call them back to endure again their suffering, but we can not help
wishing they might have been spared to us in health and vigor. Our
Guelma, does she look down upon us, does she still live, and shall
we all live again and know each other, and work together and love
and enjoy one another? In spite of instinct, in spite of faith,
these questions will come up again and again.... She said you would
soon follow her, and we know that