ou get here so soon?" she cried. And then: "We sent for you
this afternoon. Susan has been asking for you all day."

When I reached my friend's bedside one glance at her face showed me the
end was near; and from that time until it came, almost a week later, I
remained with her; while again, as always, she talked of the Cause, and
of the life-work she must now lay down. The first thing she spoke of was
her will, which she had made several years before, and in which she
had left the small property she possessed to her sister Mary, her niece
Lucy, and myself, with instructions as to the use we three were to
make of it. Now she told me we were to pay no attention to these
instructions, but to give every dollar of her money to the $60,000
fund Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett were trying to raise. She was vitally
interested in this fund, as its success meant that for five years the
active officers of the National American Woman Suffrage Association,
including myself as president, would for the first time receive salaries
for our work. When she had given her instructions on this point she
still seemed depressed.

"I wish I could live on," she said, wistfully. "But I cannot. My spirit
is eager and my heart is as young as it ever was, but my poor old body
is worn out. Before I go I want you to give me a promise: Promise me
that you will keep the presidency of the association as long as you are
well enough to do the work."

"But how can I promise that?" I asked. "I can keep it only as long as
others wish me to keep it."

"Promise to make them wish you to keep it," she urged. "Just as I wish
you to keep it."

I would have promised her anything then. So, though I knew that to hold
the presidency would tie me to a position that brought in no living
income, and though for several years past I had already drawn alarmingly
upon my small financial reserve, I promised her that I would hold the
office as long as the majority of the women in the association wished
me to do so. "But," I added, "if the time comes when I believe that some
one else can do better work in the presidency than I, then let me feel
at liberty to resign it."

This did not satisfy her.

"No, no," she objected. "You cannot be the judge of that. Promise me
you will remain until the friends you most trust tell you it is time to
withdraw, or make you understand that it is time. Promise me that."

I made the promise. She seemed content, and again began to talk of the