future.

"You will not have an easy path," she warned me. "In some ways it will
be harder for you than it has ever been for me. I was so much older than
the rest of you, and I had been president so long, that you girls have
all been willing to listen to me. It will be different with you. Other
women of your own age have been in the work almost as long as you have
been; you do not stand out from them by age or length of service, as I
did. There will be inevitable jealousies and misunderstandings; there
will be all sorts of criticism and misrepresentation. My last word
to you is this: No matter what is done or is not done, how you are
criticized or misunderstood, or what efforts are made to block your
path, remember that the only fear you need have is the fear of not
standing by the thing you believe to be right. Take your stand and hold
it; then let come what will, and receive blows like a good soldier."

I was too much overcome to answer her; and after a moment of silence
she, in her turn, made me a promise.

"I do not know anything about what comes to us after this life ends,"
she said. "But if there is a continuance of life beyond it, and if I
have any conscious knowledge of this world and of what you are doing, I
shall not be far away from you; and in times of need I will help you all
I can. Who knows? Perhaps I may be able to do more for the Cause after I
am gone than while I am here."

Nine years have passed since then, and in each day of them all it seems
to me, in looking back, I have had some occasion to recall her words.
When they were uttered I did not fully comprehend all they meant, or the
clearness of the vision that had suggested them. It seemed to me that
no position I could hold would be of sufficient importance to attract
jealousy or personal attacks. The years have brought more wisdom; I have
learned that any one who assumes leadership, or who, like myself, has
had leadership forced upon her, must expect to bear many things of which
the world knows nothing. But with this knowledge, too, has come the
memory of "Aunt Susan's" last promise, and again and yet again in
hours of discouragement and despair I have been helped by the blessed
conviction that she was keeping it.

During the last forty-eight hours of her life she was unwilling that I
should leave her side. So day and night I knelt by her bed, holding her
hand and watching the flame of her wonderful spirit grow dim. At times,
even then, it b