st people would have settled
down to enjoy the relaxations and comforts of a "green old age," she had
begun to set her house in order, _to die_. Her energies had been fairly
worn out in the service of humanity, and from the time that she made the
resolution to serve God, when moved by William Savery's pleadings, right
onward through forty-eight years of sunshine and shadow, vicissitudes
and labors, she had never swerved from her simple, earnest purpose. The
propelling motive to that long course of Christian usefulness may be
found in a few words uttered by her shortly before her death: "Since my
heart was touched at seventeen years old, I believe I have never
awakened from sleep, in sickness or in health, by day or by night,
without my first waking thought being, 'how best I might serve my
Lord.'" That unchanged desire ultimately became the master-passion of
her life.

Honors clustered thickly about her declining days. She was the welcomed
guest of royalty and nobility; on the Continent, as well as in far-away
English colonies, her name was pronounced only with respectful love. Her
eldest son was appointed to the magistracy of the county; her relatives
and associates were foremost in every enterprise intended to benefit
mankind; while both in Parliament and out of it, her recommendations
were respectfully adopted. Had her years been counted on the patriarchal
scale, instead of by their own shortened number, she could have reaped
no higher honors; for titles were in her ears but empty sounds, and
wealth only meant increased responsibility. Not many nobler souls walked
this earth, either in Quaker garb or out of it.

In 1842 her state of health appeared to be so infirm and shattered that
her brother-in-law, Mr. Hoare, offered her the loan of his house at
Cromer. She accepted the offer for a couple of months, and found a
little benefit for the bracing air. She mentioned in her diary at this
time that she had "an undue fear of an imbecile or childish state"--a
not unlikely feeling to be cherished by an energetic woman accustomed
all her life long to the work of helping others. At the end of October
she returned home, thankfully rejoicing, however, in an improved state
of health.

But a new series of trials awaited her. Death seemed to visit the happy
family circle so often that one wonders almost where the tale will stop.
Four or five grand-children passed away in rapid succession. After the
funeral of the first grand-ch