esenting her plea so touchingly that few could refuse her. Many
barrels of clothing were in this way gathered, and she often returned
home staggering beneath the weight of bundles she had carried perhaps
for a mile. She also wrote to friends at a distance, on whose
generosity she felt she could depend, and collected from them a
considerable sum of money, which, went far to keep the suffering from
starvation until new crops could be gathered. Writing to Sarah
Douglass, she says:--

"I have been so happy this winter, going about to beg old clothing for
the unfortunate freedmen in Florida. I have sent off several barrels
of clothes already. Alas! there is no Christ to multiply the garments,
and what are those I send among so many? I think of these destitute
ones night and day, and feel so glad to help them even a little."

This happiness in helping others was the secret of Sarah Grimke's
unvarying contentment, and there was always some one needing the help
she was so ready to give, some one whose trials made her feel, she
says, ashamed to think of her own. But the infirmities of old age were
creeping upon her, and though her mental faculties remained as bright
as ever, she began to complain of her eyes and her hearing. In August,
1872, she writes to a friend:--

"My strength is failing. I cannot do a tithe of the walking I used to
do, and am really almost good for nothing. But I don't know but I may
learn to enjoy doing nothing; and if it is needful, I shall be
thankful, as that has always appeared to me a great trial."

Notwithstanding this representation, however, she was seldom idle a
moment. She was an untiring knitter, and made quite a traffic of the
tidies, cushion-covers, and other fancy articles she knitted and
netted. These were purchased by her friends, and the proceeds given to
the poor. Soon after she had penned the above quoted paragraph, too,
she copied for the Rev. Henry Giles, the once successful Unitarian
preacher, a lecture of sixty-five pages, from which he hoped to make
some money. His eyesight had failed, and his means were too narrow to
permit of his paying a copyist. She also managed to keep up more or
less, as her strength permitted, her usual visits to the poor and
afflicted; and during the hot summer of 1872 she and Angelina went
daily to read to an old, bed-ridden lady, who was dying of cancer, and
living almost alone. During the following winter Sarah's strength
continued to fail, and she ha