felt a movement of dislike.'

"The last year of her life was a constant discipline of unceasing
pain, borne with that fortitude which could make her an entertaining
and interesting companion even while the sweat of mortal agony was
starting from her brow. Her own room she kept as a last asylum, to
which she would silently retreat when the torture became too intense
for the repression of society, and there alone, with closed doors, she
wrestled with her agony. The stubborn independence of her nature took
refuge in this final fastness, and she prayed only that she might go
down to death with the full ability to steady herself all the way,
needing the help of no other hand.

"The ultimate struggle of earthly feeling came when this proud
self-reliance was forced to give way, and she was obliged to leave
herself helpless in the hands of others. 'God requires that I should
give up my last form of self-will,' she said; 'now I have resigned
this, perhaps He will let me go home.'

"In a good old age, Death, the friend, came and opened the door of
this mortal state, and a great soul, that had served a long
appenticeship to little things, went forth into the joy of its Lord; a
life of self-sacrifice and self-abnegation passed into a life of
endless rest."

"But," said Rudolph, "I rebel at this life of self-abnegation and
self-sacrifice. I do not think it the duty of noble women, who have
beautiful natures and enlarged and cultivated tastes, to make
themselves the slaves of the sick-room and nursery."

"Such was not the teaching of our New England faith," said I.
"Absolute unselfishness,--the death of self,--such were its teachings,
and such as Esther's the characters it made. 'Do the duty nearest
thee' was the only message it gave to 'women with a mission;' and from
duty to duty, from one self-denial to another, they rose to a majesty
of moral strength impossible to any form of mere self-indulgence. It
is of souls thus sculptured and chiseled by self-denial and
self-discipline that the living temple of the perfect hereafter is to
be built. The pain of the discipline is short, but the glory of the
fruition is eternal."

XII

THE NEW YEAR
[1865.]

Here comes the First of January, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Five,
and we are all settled comfortably into our winter places, with our
winter surroundings and belongings; all cracks and openings are
calked and listed, the double windows are in, the furnace dragon
in the