her pastor, Mr.
Twichell, who had known her from the cradle, and who had come a long
journey to be with her; her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Crane;
Patrick, the coachman; Katy, who had begun to serve us when Susy was a
child of eight years; John and Ellen, who had been with us many years.
Also Jean was there.

At the hour when my wife and Clara set sail for America, Susy was in no
danger. Three hours later there came a sudden change for the worse.
Meningitis set in, and it was immediately apparent that she was
death-struck. That was Saturday, the 15th of August.

"That evening she took food for the last time," (Jean's letter to me).
The next morning the brain-fever was raging. She walked the floor a
little in her pain and delirium, then succumbed to weakness and returned
to her bed. Previously she had found hanging in a closet a gown which
she had seen her mother wear. She thought it was her mother, dead, and
she kissed it, and cried. About noon she became blind (an effect of the
disease) and bewailed it to her uncle.

From Jean's letter I take this sentence, which needs no comment:

"About one in the afternoon Susy spoke for the last time."

It was only one word that she said when she spoke that last time, and it
told of her longing. She groped with her hands and found Katy, and
caressed her face, and said "Mamma."

How gracious it was that, in that forlorn hour of wreck and ruin, with
the night of death closing around her, she should have been granted that
beautiful illusion--that the latest vision which rested upon the clouded
mirror of her mind should have been the vision of her mother, and the
latest emotion she should know in life the joy and peace of that dear
imagined presence.

About two o'clock she composed herself as if for sleep, and never moved
again. She fell into unconsciousness and so remained two days and five
hours, until Tuesday evening at seven minutes past seven, when the
release came. She was twenty-four years and five months old.

On the 23d, her mother and her sisters saw her laid to rest--she that
had been our wonder and our worship.

In one of her own books I find some verses which I will copy here.
Apparently, she always put borrowed matter in quotation marks. These
verses lack those marks, and therefore I take them to be her own:

Love came at dawn, when all the world was fair,
When crimson glories' bloom and sun were rife;
Love came at dawn, when hope