entlewoman,--refined, quiet, and neat,--was bought
from this restricted sum, and her small traveling expenses were paid
out of it. She abhorred anything false or flashy: her caps were
trimmed with real thread lace, and her silk dresses were of the best
quality, perfectly well made and kept; and, after all, a little sum
always remained over in her hands for unforeseen exigencies.

"This love of independence was one of the strongest features of her
life, and we often playfully told her that her only form of
selfishness was the monopoly of saintship,--that she who gave so much
was not willing to allow others to give to her; that she who made
herself servant of all was not willing to allow others to serve her.

"Among the trials of her life must be reckoned much ill health, borne,
however, with such heroic patience that it was not easy to say when
the hand of pain was laid upon her. She inherited, too, a tendency to
depression of spirits, which at times increased to a morbid and
distressing gloom. Few knew or suspected these sufferings, so
completely had she learned to suppress every outward manifestation
that might interfere with the happiness of others. In her hours of
depression she resolutely forbore to sadden the lives of those around
her with her own melancholy, and often her darkest moods were so
lighted up and adorned with an outside show of wit and humor, that
those who had known her intimately were astonished to hear that she
had ever been subject to depression.

"Her truthfulness of nature amounted almost to superstition. From her
promise once given she felt no change of purpose could absolve her;
and therefore rarely would she give it absolutely, for she _could not_
alter the thing that had gone forth from her lips. Our belief in the
certainty of her fulfilling her word was like our belief in the
immutability of the laws of nature. Whoever asked her got of her the
absolute truth on every subject, and, when she had no good thing to
say, her silence was often truly awful. When anything mean or
ungenerous was brought to her knowledge, she would close her lips
resolutely; but the flash in her eyes showed what she would speak were
speech permitted. In her last days she spoke to a friend of what she
had suffered from the strength of her personal antipathies. 'I thank
God,' she said, 'that I believe at last I have overcome all that too,
and that there has not been, for some years, any human being toward
whom I have