gentleness, as no words of mine could do. In vain may we look back
through the centuries for a higher example of divine love and patience
and heroic fortitude; and, as a friend observed, her expressions of
gratitude for the long and perfect use of her faculties at the very
moment when she felt the fatal touch which was to deprive her of them,
was the sublimity of sweet and grateful trust.

The early shattering of Angelina's nervous system rendered her always
exceedingly sensitive to outward impressions. She could not look upon
any form of suffering without, in a measure, feeling it herself; nor
could she read or listen to an account of great physical agony without
a sensation of faintness which frequently obliged her, at such times,
to leave the room and seek relief in the open air. The first stroke of
paralysis occurred the summer after Sarah's death, and was brought on
in a singular manner. Mr. Weld's account of the incident and its
consequences is thus given:--

"For weeks she had visited almost daily a distant neighbor, far gone
in consumption, whose wife was her dear friend. One day, over-heated
and tired out by work and a long walk in the sun, she passed their
house in returning home, too much overdone to call, as she thought to
do, and had gone a quarter of a mile toward home, when it occurred to
her, Mr. W. may be dying now! She turned back, and, as she feared,
found him dying. As she sat by his bedside, holding his hand, a
sensation never felt before seized her so strongly that she at once
attempted to withdraw her hand, but saw that she could not without
disturbing the dying man's last moments. She sat thus, in exceeding
discomfort, half an hour, with that strange feeling creeping up her
arm and down her side.

"At last his grasp relaxed, and she left, only able to totter, and
upon getting home, she hardly knew how, declined supper, and went at
once to bed, saying only, 'Tired, tired.' In the morning, when her
husband rose, she said, 'I've something to tell you.' Her tone alarmed
him. 'Don't be alarmed,' she said. To his anxious question, 'Pray,
what is it?' she said again, 'Now you mustn't be troubled, I'm not;
it's all for the best. Something ails my right side, I can't move hand
or foot. It must be paralysis. Well, how thankful I should be that I
have had the perfect use of all my faculties, limbs, and senses for
sixty-eight years! And now, if they are to be taken from me, I shall
have it always to be g