--something generally so
well chosen as to show that she had been running over our needs, and
noting what to give. She was no less gracious as receiver than as giver.
The little articles that we made for her, or the small presents that we
could buy out of our childish resources, she always declared were
exactly what she needed; and she delighted us by the care she took of
them and the value she set upon them.

"Her income was a source of the greatest pleasure to her, as maintaining
an independence without which she could not have been happy. Though she
constantly gave, to every family in which she lived, services which no
money could repay, it would have been the greatest trial to her not to
be able to provide for herself. Her dress, always that of a true
gentlewoman,--refined, quiet, and neat,--was bought from this restricted
sum, and her small travelling 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 s