Almira and the girls are devoted to my comfort; and your sister has had two parties for me, taking in all I most wanted to see. Your brother Sam could not have been more kind and attentive, or more considerate of my interests, were he my own son. E. is one of the most useful and excellent of daughters, saving her mother from many cares; and M. is one of the most charming creatures to be found anywhere."

To Sarah Thayer, with whom her relations were always most affectionate and confidential, she afterwards wrote: "I often feel sorry that I ever left Northampton. I was too old for so serious a change in my interests and habits."

In Milton, her kind Forbes cousins contributed greatly to her enjoyment; and the occasional society of her brother and his wife, at Brush Hill, and of Mr. and Mrs. Morison, who lived near her, and of the Ware family, the children of those early friends she had valued so much in youth, was an unspeakable pleasure to her. But the restlessness of disease and of a broken-up life had now asserted. its sway over her, and it was evident that on earth she had no continuing city.

IN

CHAPTER XXI.

I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;

Alas! the gratitude of men

Hath oftener left me mourning.

WORDSWORTH.

N the spring of 1853, my mother took a house in Cambridge, to be near her sisters. Within a few weeks after she went there, the death of her sister, Eliza Robbins, excited much emotion in her heart. My Aunt Eliza died at my Aunt Howe's in the August of that year. In her youth, a certain impatience of limitations, and eccentricity of purpose had separated her much from her family, though never from their affections. But though. this circumstance left much to deplore, there was much to remember with deep thankfulness, at the end. Thirty years of her life had been devoted to the prisoner, the slave, and especially to the higher education of the young, and had crowned her memory with blessings. She made for herself and retained through life the friendship of the good and wise; and, after her death, Mr. Bryant, Miss Sedgwick, Mr. Henry Tuckerman, and William Ware, wrote affectionate tributes to her memory. When my mother returned from seeing her for the last time, the day before her death, she told me with

much emotion that when her sisters stood around her bed, she breathed a prayer in her wonderfully expressive language, which for depth of humility and sublimity of aspiration surpassed any thing she had ever listened to.

Some excellent school books for the young, remain as evidence of her patient toil and discriminating intellect; and letters to many friends, as fine as any that were ever penned.

In the autumn of 1856, my mother moved into a small house next to the one she had first occupied, which her sons had bought for her and fitted up with every convenience that could add to the comfort of her declining years. A faithful and devoted woman named Mary Walker, watched over her personal wants; another good Mary did the work of the house. Her youngest sister spent hours of every day with her, reading to her and entertaining her. One noble young man, whose character and mental attainments would have given him a choice of homes at that seat of learning, came daily to the little house for many years to take his meals, because his presence there gave steadiness and support to the three solitary women.

Her life in Cambridge, though marked by the steady but slow progress of disease, was not without many alleviations and pleasures. Her son Joseph, at Jamaica Plain, was constant in his visits; the tie between them had always been most tender. His wife also paid her the tender and considerate attentions of a daughter. Her sisters' houses, both in Cambridge and Boston, were open to her at all